SALE OF COAL

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19765, 21 December 1935, Page 16 (Supplement)

SALE OF COAL

New hope has come for the coalfields—a hope that not only a national coal strike may be averted, but a way found to meet the claim for improvement in miners’ wages, says a London paper. This new hope springs from the decision of the Central Council of the Coalowners to accede to the request of the Government for the setting up of a central control of coal sales.

This step would be the means of eliminating wasteful competition in the selling of coal, and so make available better wages for the miners, who are now about to take a strike ballot to enforce an increase of 2s a shift.

At the present time, in every coalproducing district except Lancashire, coal is sold by individual pits and concerns in a haphazard and higgledypiggledy fashion. Competition is rampant, and often coal is sold at less than it costs to produce. Lancashire recently set up one coalselling organisation for the whole coalfield, which had the immediate effect of improving the average price per ton. The decision of the Coalowners’ Council means that similar organisations will be set up in each district and co-ordinated by a central controlling body. The object of the scheme is to get a higher and more economic pit-head price for the coal and thus enable the owners to pay higher wages to the miners.

Newv Hope for Great Industry. Way to Better Wages.

For the last quartef, that ending June, 1935, the average pit-head price for coal all over the country was the abnormally low one of 13s. 2d. a ton. The average in Northumberland was the lowest at 11s. 3d. a ton, and the highest 15s. 4£d. in Lancashire.

It is believed that the average of the whole country could be raised even higher than that of Lancashire, and how that would affect the wages claim of the miners is easy to see.

The miners' wage claim is for 2s a shift; the average coal raised per man per shift is 23 cwts. It was 20 cwts. in pre-war days, and with an increase in the present average pit-head price of a fraction more than Is. 6d. per ton the increased wage claim of 2s. a shift could, in the opinion of representative people, be paid.

The central council of the coalowners has promised the Government that this central coal-selling scheme shall be set up and in working order by next July. Meantime the Miners’ Federation are to take a strike ballot.

There is every indication that the miners will vote for a strike, and that a serious crisis will be created.

In view, however, of the decision of the coalowners, there is a possibil* ity of a temporary way being found to avert a stoppage against the time when the coal-selling scheme will be working.