MINING TROUBLE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16036, 29 January 1920, Page 3

MINING TROUBLE.

QUESTION AF ANOTHER

CONFERENCE,

(Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, January 28.

A Westport deputation, to-day asked the Government to open up a new mine in the Inangahua Yalley and build there a good mining village and build a railway to make the mine accessible, also to take steps to open up coal measures at Charleston. It was urged on Mr Massey that the Government must see that the miners are better paid and provided with better houses if they are to be induced to stay on the coalfields. If the, present state of affairs continued for two years more there would be no men left en the fields, and the only alternative would be to work coal with foreign labour. Replying, Mr Massey said ho believed the conditions in mines, whether State of privately owned, should be as good as it was possible to make them, but he said; “We find a pistol is presented at our heads, and we are told if we don’t do so and so there will be no coal. I believe a round-table conference is the best method of settling these troubles.

Mr Holland, M.P.: So do the miners.

Mr Massey; Then why don’t the miners come along to the conference? Mr Holland; They are prepared to come now.

Mr Massey said if the miners were willing to meet the mine-owners, the Union being represented in proper person by miners, he was prepared to do all he could to bring about a conference and assist to make it successful; but if the miners were not prepared to do this, it would to useless for him to ask the owners to come to a conference. If the miners would only drop the idea of being represented by an outside body— I the Alliance of Labour —he thought the conference could to arranged and the difficulty settled.