Spectre Of Hunger, Caused By The Coal Strike, Is Now Affecting N.S. Wales Miners

Wanganui Chronicle, 26 July 1949, Page 5

Spectre Of Hunger, Caused By The Coal Strike, Is Now Affecting N.S. Wales Miners

(Specie! N.Z.P.A. Correspondent) (From C. H. Mentlplay?

SYDNEY, July 25 (Recd. 6 pm).— Reports from the coalfields indicate that at last the miners and their families are beginning to feel some of the hardships which, for three weeks now, have been prevalent among the poorer people in the cities. Though some mining districts had been heavily hit by floods when the strike commenced, ahd, therefore, were not fully prepared for the long siege, the majority or mining families were infinitely better off than city workers. AH had large stocks of coal for their fuel stoves and many miners’ houses were sunplied with electricity from m:ne powerhouses which had to he Ken- ‘ as ■».*>?!•»» ", Si to apply pressure to storekeepers in

the mining towns so that in many cases credit is still being extended. Though it was suggested that tnc Federal Government’s Emergency Strike Act banned tradesmen froin ) supplying miners with goods and services, such an interpretation was obviously impossible to the police, Many miners’ lodges made it all too c J® ar .that a shopkeeper op tradesman u ; s l n r to exte ! ld .credit to the miners ' kt be committing business suicide. <* n v ’ however, shops on the coalJ’ o1 ’ 01 ? , thal * he £ales or non-es-goods have dropped to an absoJ, rninim . L,ni - ai ? d that . re , ady money ”’ arce ; al e shop, me refusing credit, and S' = WKW “»■’ Many mining families ar e penniless,

or are watching their meagre savings drain away. Coal stocks in many homes have been exhausted, and groups of men and women seek gleaning s from old dumps. The striking I miners have gone to the country in ' thousands after rabbits, so that grazlers say there are more rabbiters than rabbits in some fields. Battered trucks ! roll into Sydney and Newcastle pack.ed with rabbit carcases. The liner > Akaroa Jett Sydney for Britain with I her refrigeration space bulging with 1,800,000 rabbits. • Yet these earnings cannot alone | keep the miners’ families alive. Relief i de l’ ots •»•’<! soup kitchens are spring- | ing up m the coal country. iw- *3 p« n | Where are our funds?”