The Timaru Herald MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1930. BRITAIN’S COAL PROBLEM

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18537, 7 April 1930, Page 8

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1930. BRITAIN’S COAL PROBLEM

Generally speaking it can be said that the'British public is sick oE the coal quarrel, and will have no mercy on any political party or sectional interest on one side or the other, which seeks to prolong the struggle. Deeply touched by the appalling misery of Britain’s dwellers and workers in the coalmine areas associated with what has been for many years a haunting terror to the people of England and Wales, and to the leaders of all political and business sections, the Labour Government has sought to discover a solution of a bewildering problem. The abject need of the workers and the panic fear of the owners in the face of a tremendous slump in the British coal trade, has up till now baffled all three political parties. The Labour Government, however, pledged itself to the electors to grapple with the troubles of the industry and seek a way out. The outcome of prolonged deliberation was a Bill for presentation to the House of Commons, embodying three main principles: reduction of working hours, a National Wages Board and joint marketing. The proposals are claimed by Labour supporters to provide such a efficacious solution as will give producers economic prices, while Government control will j event the exploitation of the consumer. Many leading Opposition journals Insist that Labour’s plan will cause trouble, since it is confidently forecasted that coal will be dearer. In some quarters the scheme is viewed with profound suspicion, and positive dislike of the so-called solution of the problem has been expressed by leaders in other branches of industry and also by the general coal-consuming public. It is pointed out that other industries even more depressed than the mining, look with dismay at the prospect of dearer coal; indeed, the more the position is studied by certain interests, the more wanton does the action of the Labour Government appear in thrusting such ugly spokes into the wheels of industry for no economic or industrial reasons, but simply because the miners are the “thick-and-thin” supporters of Labour, and are clamouring that election pledges shall be fulfilled. But notwithstanding pre-election promises, not even the Labour Cabinet, with their claim to be regarded as miracle-workers, can escape economic principles. The economic facts, which are so unpalatable to the Socialists, indicate that British coal, since the war, has been losing ground to competitors in other countries, and its decline can be explained only, as Professor Clay has repeatedly pointed out, “by a level of costs that is excessive in relation to world prices.” In other words, the British people have been in danger of committing the mistake against which Mr Snowden warned Socialists when he told them in a notable speech at Leicester, that they could not get more out of an industry than it produced. The Labour Government’s scheme, obviously means selling coal much dearer in Britain in order to sell it cheaper abroad. Such intervention of the State, however well meant, must disorganise the coal industry for the time being, and is likely to have a very mischievous effect. Such a scheme places the British manufacturer and the British consumer at a permanent disadvantage as compared with the foreigner. Some of the critics go so far as to say that Labour’s solution of the coal problem will mean an immediate increase in unemployment, first of all for the miners, as with any increase in the price of coal the consumption goes down, and secondly in all the important industries which use coal as one of their raw materials. Other commentators venture the conjecture that tlie proposed district output and marketing schemes will balance the effect of a reduction of working time; indeed, The Saturday Review says that “the object of these schemes is to limit unnecessary competition between pit and pit and district and district, and it may be that the economies thus effected can be set against a rise in production costs occasioned by shorter hours of labour, and that a fall in wages can thereby be avoided. It is admitted that this is an uncertain calculation, but it is obvious that the Imperial Government sets great store by it, since it is the intention to postpone a reduction in the working day until the marketing schemes have had time to prove their effectiveness. The owners, however, with the exception of those in the present seven-and-one-half districts, see in the Government’s scheme nothing but a blow which increases their costs of production by roughly one shilling a ton, at a time when many of them are heavily in debt to the banks and require fresh capital to carry on and when, even with the benefits of derating, they are barely paying their way. To help them to raise additional revenue the Government proposes to enforce compulsory schemes for the regulation of the output of coal and where they do so to enforce minimum prices. It is recognised, of

course, that the industry is in a most parlous condition and now that the Labour Government has succeeded it piloting its muchcriticised proposals through the House of Commons, the general feeling favours giving the scheme the most sympathetic soil in which to flourish, if cold economic facts do not kill the tender plant before it takes root.