COAL SUPPLY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16471, 6 July 1921, Page 7

COAL SUPPLY.

RESTRICTIONS NOT YET LIFTED. LIGNITE MAY SLUMP. Vendors of lignite cool are likely to be hard hit by the lifting of the regulation which that hard coal shall not be sold except with a proportion of lignite. Np offical advice has been received by the Christchurch Ooal Trade Committee regarding the lifting of the restriction. The fine winter accounts very largely for the proposed change 1 , in the opinion of the manager of a local firm of coal merchants. The demand for coal this winter had been comparatively light, because of the absence of bad weather and also, no doubt, because of tho price to which coal had risen. He did not think that the proxJsed lifting of the restrictions was due to larger importations of Newcastle coal or increased output on the West Coast. The sale of lignite coal was bound to fall off if the restrictions were lifted, he said. Many people who of necessity had to use lignite coal would probably continue using it, because they had been educated to doing so, but there was no doubt that many lignite mines, especially those which had sprung up recently, would have to close downSajii© of these mines were so situated that tlie cost of railage and cartage practically equalled the cost of tho coal, and they would be unable to compete if hard coal w'ere freed from its companionship with lignite and placed on the market at a reasonable price. A gloomy view of the coal business generally was presented by him. “ I’ve been in the trade forty odd years, and I’ve only seen two men go out of it w;ith money,” he remarked. “I’ve seen dozens of them lose their money in it.”