ORDERS FOR COAL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 9

ORDERS FOR COAL.

Railways are Overstocked at Present. NO IMPORTS SINCE JULY. (Special to the “ Star.”) AUCKLAND, December 19. Inundated with requests to take additional supplies of coal from practically all the collieries in New Zealand, the Railways Department has been forced to distribute its orders as equitably as possible, having regard to the quality and price of the coal. “ The stocks are greatly in excess of present requirements,” stated a letter from the Minister of Mines, received by the council of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. He explained that the Railways Department had been compelled owing to reduced train running to reduce its orders for coal. Two of the principal mines on the West Coast were not now receiving orders from the Department; and, in consequence, of the reduced railway orders and the depressed state of the coal market, one of the largest coal mines in the Dominion was working, only one day a week. With regard to importations of coal, the Minister stated that no shipments had been imported by the Government since July and the coal then imported was being retained in stock. For railway purposes only coal produced in the Dominion was at present used. In the circumstances, it did not appear that the Department could meet the chamber in its suggestion that increased orders for coal supplies should be given to the Hikurangi and Wilson’s Collieries in the North. There was the prospect, however, that during the summer the orders from the Waikato mines might be reduced and transferred to the Hikurangi mines.