COAL QUESTION.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16416, 9 January 1919, Page 6

COAL QUESTION.

A CRITICAL POSITION. According to statements made by various coal merchants in Christchurch yesterday, tho shortage of coal at the present moment acute than it has ever been before, and glance into various coal yards quite bore out this statement. Sorao of them had a small heap of lignite here, and a smaller heap of alleged coal—for tho greater part, slack—there, while not a few of the yards had absolutely no stock at all. As a matter of fact, even tho despised lignite is at present almost unprocurable, and tho citizen who secures a bag f>f eocl of any description may count himself lucky. Tho shortage, it seems, has been increasing for some time past, and it now npnears to have become as bad as it could possibly be. Tho shortage is, of course* in 110 way due to tho merchants, for they are only too eager to secure all the supplies they .can, but they themselves are in a position 311 st as bad as that of tho consumer. The present serious position is due to a number of causes, exclusive altogether of those which caused the original shortage. In the first place, as it was pointed out to a 'Tress" representative yosterdav. the coalniiner is by no means a superhuman individual, and he fell as easy a victim to the recent epidemic as anybody else, the result being a very acute shortage of labour. Then again, in common with the rest of the community, the coal-miner wants lus Christmas and New Year holidays, which disorganised matters generally for about a fortnight. Still another cause—a very important factor—has been the lack or tonnago from Australia, which means the fatal cutting off, for the present, of supplies from Newcastle, and the loss of many thousands of tons of coal to tho Dominion. Tho Railway Department, it is stated, makes a very largo use of Newcastle coal, and the stoppage of those sunplies has been very largely tho cause of the great shortage now being oxperiencd by tho Dopartmont, which threatens to interfere with the existing services if conditions do not Improve. For a vory considerable time past, with an exception now and then, wo have been dealing out coal to our patrons—and only our very own customers —at the rate of a bag a time, remarked a well-known merchant yesterday, "and even our best patrons found that they could not 'come the double,' that is to say, they could get their one bags only at rather extended intervals j in fact, when absolutely necessary. There was no such thing as the same person getting a bag to-day, another to-morrow, another the next day, and so on. Wo have done our best to satisfy all our patrons, though naturally we have "been very far from pleasing all. As things have been, there has been, a 6 it were, an unofficial rationing of coal, and if matters do not improve very shortly, it will be absolutely necessary to bring in some sort of compulsory rationing. There are no supplies to be had just now, and no one can deny that coa lis a necessity,' so something idrnstic will have to be done if no improvement comes about." It is anticinated, however, that most of the New Zealand mines will shortly regain their normal order, though, of course, it will be some little time before the consumers can reap the benefits of whatever improvements may come.