TROOPS START WORK IN MINES

Chronicle (Levin), 2 August 1949, Page 5

TROOPS START WORK IN MINES

(N.Z.P.A.-

-Reuter.

First Truck Oi Coal Rolls Out In Ten Minutes

Copyright)

Keceived Tuesday, 10.30 a.m. SYDNEY, August 2. Army and Air Force men began working 12 New South Wales open cut mines shortly after midnight last night under the glare of floodlights.

In bitter cold, with the threat of frost, tractors, huge grabs, scopps and bull-dozers went into action and within ten minutes the first truckload of coal was rolling out of the Muswellbrook mine. Five mines on the northern and six on the western field are being worked by the Army, and one on the western field by the R.A.A.F. Late last night convoys moved out of the nearby military camps and detachments of men manned the machines with which they had already familiarised themselves. As the troops moved in the open cuts looked like huge canyons under bright lights. "The boys have been waiting to go over the top," said one officer, "and they are as keen as mustard." At Minmi, near Newcastle, skeleton crews began work early and the main body commenced at dawn. Here and at Newdell soldiers will take sevejal days to clear the sludge and water from recent flooding before they start moving coal. Two other northern mines are new projects which will not produce

coal for at least a month. An emquent appeal by Mr. W. Crook, president of the Northern Miners' Federation, swayed a meetmg of Muswellbrook miners yesteri day from voting for immediate return to work. Mr. Crook and Mr. H. Cockerill, vice-president of the Northern Federation, asked the miners not to take any action which would split the federation. > The meeting, which was at'.ended by 250 miners, at first unanimously carried a vote of no-confidence in i;he action -of the Left Wing of the Combined Mining Union's Council in refusing to call aggregate meetings. The desire of many for an immediate resumption of work in defiance of the council and Miners' Federation, was strong at the outset but Mr. Crook appealed to them to hold on for a week or so to give the federation a chance. The meeting them decide'd to call a conference of northern lodge delegates within a week with the intention of convening aggregate meetings. Speakers said they did not want Communists.