COAL PRODUCTION COSTS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24902, 15 June 1946, Page 8

COAL PRODUCTION COSTS

STATE AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP

MINISTER’S REPLY TO ASSOCIATION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 14. “In its statements concerning coal subsidies, the New Zealand Coalmine Owners’ Association has followed its usual practice of putting forward carefully selected figures for part of the industry.” said the past president of the Federation of Labour (the Hon. A. McLagan) last night. Mr McLagan said the chosen figures gave a completely incorrect and misleading picture. The owners had referred to 11 companies producing 931,896 tons of coal and to eight Stateowned collieries producing 601,177 tons but had refrained from saying anything about the cost of production of the remainder of the total output of 2,829.000 tons last year. Mr McLagan said he could produce figures from selected privately-owned mines to show that their cost of production was higher than in State mines, but he did not believe in using figures in that way. The owners asked how State ownership would enable payment of coal subsidies to be avoided. The reply was that, if all the mines were State owned and worked as a national unit, with the mines laid out as the State could and would lay them out to get the best result, coal production could be made so efficient that subsidies would not be necessary.