BRITAIN’S COAL INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1933, Page 4

BRITAIN’S COAL INDUSTRY.

The decision of the Government to come to the assistance of the coalmining industry in Great Britain is not surprising. Of the three basic heavy industries, coal, pig iron and steel, coalmining has shown least response to the efforts for its resuscitation. Nor is the reason hard to find. Foreign countries that formerly bought coal from England, which in turn bought commodities from them, have developed their home supplies and have actually entered into successful competition for markets formerly supplied by the United Kingdom. With lower wages and standards of living, and with their coal often conveyed in subsidised shipping it was little wonder foreign countries could undersell the

British coal exporter, and so long as they could continue to send their commodities for sale in Great Britain the policy was wholly in favour of the foreigners. With Britain’s altered fiscal policy the determination to recover some of the coalexport trade has been manifested in the agreements made with Germany, Denmark and Argentina. In all those agreements benefit, direct or indirect, to the coal industry was sought. The latest effort in that direction, the assistance to those engaged in extracting fuel oil from coal is more important still. Not only will it assist in the consumption of coal but it will increase employment in the extraction of oil and other by-products. Hie competition of oil with coal as a fuel is well known, and for a time it appeared as though the older industry could put up little defence. Scientific research has, however, shown the way. Not only will extraction of oil supplies from coal increase employment and help to resuscitate an important industry, but it will give Great Britain and particularly the British Navy some independence of the foreigner for supplies of oil fuel. From every point of view the subsidy seems justified, and if experience shows that the oil-extraction process can be cheapened and widened, action on similar lines may be justified in New Zealand for the sake of the local coalmining industry.