COAL DISPUTE SETTLED

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18229, 17 January 1931, Page 4

COAL DISPUTE SETTLED

The news that the South Wales mining dispute has been settled will be rec'eived with gratification. The negotiations have been protracted, and while the owners’ and the miners’ representatives were finding it difficult to come to an agreement other nations were entrenching their position as to coal output and were securing markets which were formerly' supplied by Britain. The United States, Poland and Germany seized the opportunity of exploiting the stoppage, and there was a 4 danger of Britain losing foreign orders amounting to 1,000,000 tons, owing to the inability to guarantee delivery. Stocks which were large a fortnight ago were practically exhausted. Shippers were idle, while orders had been diverted to Continental markets. The seriousness of such a state of affairs is at once apparent, and every day that the stoppage lasted the position became worse. Now, fortunately, an agreement has been reached, and it is to be hoped that the settlement is such that it will assure peace in the coal industry for a considerable . time, and allow it to make up the ground it has lost, and win back any market that it may have Jeopardised. Never in history was there a time which called so much for industrial peace, and co-operation between the coal owners and the miners would do much to enable Britain to win through this period of depression.