PRICE OF COAL

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12707, 31 July 1919, Page 4

PRICE OF COAL

PERMANENT MUNICIPAL SUPPLY. The Special Coal Committee of the City Council met yesterday afternoon. was ocided to visit, tliis morning, ve railway sidings in the city under oner to the municipality, with the view ®f eCtlns £ °, ne temporarily for the t - P "° n K?. tle mUnici i )al COal, With entlv 'n' lty 0f acquirin S permancommerr] iv, decided to re. raunkimlifv I*® ft* y Coimcil that the coaf ty lould So mto business as mded thai nonc of the coal obtained by e-s I Xi lt Tt hoU]d - be Sold t0 deal-c-onr,rot d ,n i ■ ft 8 . municipality should obtains 4, dlstn bute the supplies it dennf r-'i ft 18 eommittee appointed a depot clerk, a depot foreman and fixed ■ rL™ geS 7 and <*• th « 'V»ses of the eomln vt + ft £poct of the shipment sfnrf S A it was decided to sta rt filing tickets to-day. file Mayor (Dr Thacker, M.P.) has Tufv h 9 ” dß i d t0 hil ?l an “count, dated •inly 28, showing that one bag of coal was charged for at 6s 6d. and one bag 6d, net total 9s d, 3d° tal ® S 9d ’ disCoUnt

WOOLSTON COUNCIL’S PROPOSAL.

The attention of the Board of Trade, which is at present in 1 was nrawn to the terms of the resolu- | tion passed at a meeting of the TVo'ol- ! ston Borough Council on Monday t. liae resolution declared in favour of public 'ownership and control of mining transportation and distribution nf Wlth ad ?T uato representation «L S on , ft 0 board of control, nv,li° nden \ ne f t i le .Proposal for semipin ate control of the coal-minino- industry with State guarantee 'of “divi-! dends to private shareholders, embodied i Board_ of Trade s report. - 1 f ’■ M’Donald, acting-chairman of the board, pointed out that a good deal of misapprehension appeared to r f gard p£ ille aatu re and scope of the board s recommendations on the establishment of a Dominion Coal ' Board to take over the existing coal companies, with their assets and liabilities, at valuation, such valuation to be determined on the average market \ aiue of the shares of the existing companies for the period of three years immediately preceding the establishment of the Dominion, Coal Board, the detaxis to be • calculated and determined J a appointed commission. Aj oa i Trade never recommended that the present shareholders in all tne present companies should be guaranteed any return. What the hoard did recommend was that the sharehoWere in the proposed company, or tmal Hoard, should be guaranteed a pure interest rate of 4 per cent 'on their paid-up capital. .‘‘ Tbe Wodston Borough Council,” said Mr M Donald, ‘ ‘ have apparently overlooked the fact that nationalisation, as recommended in their resolution, can only be brought about by purchase or confiscation. Presumably they cannot intend to recommend that the interests of the present shareholders should be confiscated, therefore their pioposal amounts to direct purchase. The money to effect tliis object must be found by the Government, unless, as was suggested recently by Mr Hoiland, M.P. for Grey, the other industries of the country should be taxed to provide the fund. If the Government borrows the money to effect the purchase, it must guarantee to pay interest, and in this event it would pay interest to bondholders who would have no direct incentive to see that the coalmining venture of the State was efficiently managed, whereas under the recommendation of the Board of Trade the board was ’of opinion that it would be beneficial to the coal-mining industry as a whole to foster a higher degree of enterprise, initiative and resourceful management, and the accumulation out of the profits of the industry 'of a fund adequate to its future development, without its becoming a burden upon the other industries of the Dominion. . Therefore, the board’s recommendation, if given effect to, would amount to the establishment of a partnership between the State, Capital and Labour in the ccal-mining industry, and thereby combine the undoubted advantages of a centralised policy and management with those which may reasonably he expected to result from representation of Labour and of consumers, through the State, on the controlling body. Such a body would, for the first time, give the mine-workers a voice in the determination of the business policy of the industry, and in the conduct of the management, thereby improving their status and alleviating, if not removing entirely, the causes of industrial strife and misunderstanding, both of which j have been a marked feature of the trade’s history during recent years, to the great detriment of the entire community.” The proposal to raise by taxation the money to buy out the present shareholders amounts to a levy on other industries for the benefit of the Coalmining industry, stated Mr M’Donald, and is unsound in principle.