THE COALMINING INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1931, Page 6

THE COALMINING INDUSTRY.

At first sight the report of the commission set up for the reorganisation of the British, coalmining industry seems nothing short of revolutionary. Concentration of effort is the dominant note, with a total disregard of its effect upon districts or individuals. Great Britain is to be divided into six mining districts controlled by a central directorate, which will decide what mines are to be worked, though this may make derelict districts where coalmining is practically the only occupation of the -wage-earners. The commission makes no apology, for the ruthlessness of its recommendations. British supremacy in the coal trade has gone, it reports, supply exceeds demand, and if the industry is to be saved costs of production must be considerably reduced. Though the means of bringing about that reduction may mean that 100,000 miners will lose their occupation, the commission sees no satisfactory alternative to the amalgamations it suggests. The findings are solemn proof of the correctness' of the warnings given the coal miners six years ago, when the necessity for reducing costs of production created a demand for lower rates of pay to the men in the pits. The sequel is well known. The men resisted, went on strike, and did not return to work until grievous injury had. been done the industry, injury from which it has never recovered. For, while the British miner sulked and refused to work his foreign competitor was np and doing. The consequence was that when the miners were ready to return to work on the masters’ terms the amount of work offering was hoplessly inadequate to absorb the available labour. It has remained so ever since. Whether the commission’s recommendations will be accepted remains to be seen, but the warning of the British experience might well be heeded by coal miners in this country. There are indications here of the same unwillingness on the part of the miners to face economic facts as obtained among those of Great Britain, with the corollary that Dominion mines are more or less idle while orders for coal are sent oversea. There is the same objection to any mining systems calculated to reduce production costs,- of which the Miners’ Union does not approve, and, unless the drift is arrested there seems a likelihood of the New Zealand industry following the sorry example of that iu Great Britain.