OWNERSHIP OF MINES

Chronicle (Levin), 20 July 1946, Page 4

OWNERSHIP OF MINES

STATE SHOULD IIANDLE COAL WELLINGTON, July 19. The sooncr the mines were nationalised the bottcr, said the Leader of the 1 egislative Council, IIou. A. McLagan, speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate in the council this afternoon. When that was done, he said, the industry could be planned aiil developed in Ihe interests of the counti'y as a whole. There. had been a certain amount of ncquisition of mines in recent years and the prineipal motive for Ihe acquisition had been to produce more eoal and keep the mines in production. Discussing the suggestions made liy JTon. T. 0. Bishop that -the price of coal should have been allowed to rise by a commensurate amount rather than pay subsidies, Hon. .McLagan said that would mean rises in traiispdrt, the rettt.il price, the cost of living with possibility increased wages to meet it, and genevally would have meant that New Zealand' would have paid considerably more than £3,000,000 extra instead of £900,000 or £1,000,000 in subsidies. The outstanding dofeet in the private ownership of mines, was that development work was never done satisfactorily and millions of tons of coal had been lost that could never be replaced. IIon. McLagan said there were many instances of the press not giving the public the real explanation of miue holdups. Newspapers never failed to f ea ture stop[iages but never gave the men eredit for the work they did. Tlieir overtime work and Saturday work for the produ'etion of eoal did not get any headlines.