A COSTLY DISPUTE.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 May 1930, Page 8

A COSTLY DISPUTE.

The report to-day that an effort is being made to settle the long-standing dispute in the New South Wales coal mining industry bears evidence of authenticity. It was announced last week that the colliery proprietors had decided to reopen a number of the principal mines to-day, and it is to be supposed that the announcement has had a salutary influence among the miners. The report that they have sought and have obtaiped from the employers a promise that there shall be no victimisation in the event of the striking unionists going back to work bears the impress of truth, and if agreement has been reached on this point there is every reason to hope that the miners will be ready to take the places which the employers were about to offer to volunteers. The dispute has continued for 14 months, keeping idle 32 of the largest mines in New South Wales, and during that period Australia’s large export trade in coal has completely disappeared, the production from the mines barely sufficing ito meet local requirements. The value of the coal output in 1928 was £1,500,000 less than in 1927, and last year there was the further tremendous drop of £2,311,000. The decline in production has been entirely due to trouble between employees and employers. During the past 15 years the average number of strikes and lock-outs in the New-castle-Maitland mines has been nearly 100 a year, with the result that there has been an annual loss of over' half a million days’ work. Both the owners of the mines and the employees have lost very heavily, and the wonder is that men who have sacrificed such a proportion of their wages over so long a period should have been willing to draw out the present dispute as they have done. To-day’s message states that the miners are popularly believed to be at the end of their resources. From time to time, of late it has been stated that other unions have refused to .contribute any longer to the strike pay of the miners, and the appeals of the miners’ leaders for the continuance of the struggle have not aroused enthusiasm. Doubtless the firmness recently displayed by the employers has had its effect, and the men realise that defeat has become inevitable. If they can now make up their minds .to accept a small reduction of wages, which is essential to the maintenance of the industry, they will end what must be regarded as one of the costliest disputes Australia has known.