COAL TRADE

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16259, 9 July 1918, Page 6

COAL TRADE

THE MEN AND THE OWNERS

(SPECIAL TO "the raEss.")

WELLINGTON, July 8

Tho coal-miners' representatives have been conferring with the Hons. W. H. Herries and W. 3>. S. Mac Donald all day, and no announcement has been mado of any decisions having been reachod. Apparently the union "bosses'' will not accept the employers' offer, which is intended to increase the output of coal. Tho employers say that with every past increase in wages tho men have done less work, and they are opposed to further increases which will eiiuble some men to do still less. Timo lost now is a serious matter, but it is all lost by a minority of the men. Tho Government has tried to induce the owners to grant some concessions without raising the price of coal to ,the public. This the owners have refused to do, and the Government will hesitate before acquiescing in the raising of the price of coal. If tho owners' arc compelled by the Government to meet the unions and give increases, they will insist on increases in price, and insist also upon a clear statement of tho causes of such increases as may be necossary. Tho companies' profits average, it is understood, some 3.7 per cent., and this percentage is reckoned without allowance for depreciation in the assets —the coal in the seams.

News from the West Ooast is that tho steady-going men among the miners do not want a strike at present. and that if Mr Semplo and are foolish enough to call a strike, tho affair will bo a failure and short-lived.