WORLD’S COAL TRADE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18382, 28 September 1929, Page 17

WORLD’S COAL TRADE

IMPORTANT CONFERENCE AT GENEVA. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 25. The president and secretary of the Miners’ Federation left London yesterday for Geneva, to attend the conference of coal experts which will open on Monday. The conference has been summoned by the Economic Committee of the League of Nations for consideration of the world coal situation, and in particular, suggestions conveyed in dn interim report which were briefly as follow) International agreements between producers should be arranged concerning output, markets, and prices; a . special, international .committee, representative of all interests, Governments, employers, miners, merchants and consumers, should be set up; measures should be taken for assimilating, if not equalising, wages, typurs and social conditions of labour; and the existing artificial restrictions of trade in coal and artificial stimulus of production should be abolished.

, Representatives of the British coal owners leave London to-day to take part in the discussion. Better distribution of the output of coal among European countries was urged before the League Assembly by Mr William Graham, president of the Board of Trade, at Geneva, a fortnight ago. He advocated the formation of a committee, including coalowners, wholesalers, miners, and consumers, to study the problem of the coal industry in all its aspects, and the steps to be taken to secure a uniform agreement throughout the world. Mr J. H. Thomas, Minister in Charge of Employment, to-day received at the Treasury about a dozen representatives of the coal owners, with whom he wished to discuss the question of selling British coal in Canada. The meeting was a sequel to his recent visit to the Dominion, when he learned that large contracts for British coal could be obtained if the price was suitable. Among the coal owners present were Mr Evan Williams, president, and Mr Lee, secretary of the Coal Owners’ Association.