MINING UNREST.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1611, 30 November 1912, Page 5

MINING UNREST.

TROUBLE IN KALQOORLIE, By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Sydney, November 29. The Trades and Labour Council hns received a communication from, the Kalgoorlie and Boulder City Miners' Unions stating that an industrial storm is gathering. The miners are taking a ballot to decide what action they will take regarding a demand for higher wages. If work is ceased twenty-five thousand people after a fortnight will bo dependent on outside help. The Chamber of Mines has offered to increase the surface rate from 10s. to 10s. 6d. per day. ; The ballot is expected to reject decisively the miners' circular.

SUPPORT FOR WAIHI MINERS. Sydney, November 29. Tho Australian Miners' Association at Broken Hill resolved to continue to support the Waihi meu. The association condemned the New Zealand Government for trying to force the men to work.

THE MINERS AND THEIR GRIEVANCES. . A reply to the combined unions' circular, with regard to the demynd for increased wages, was recently issued by the ICalgoorlio Chamber of Mines. After referring tb the negotiations which have been carried ou between the Chamber and the oombined unions' committee, the circular states:— : "The secretary of the combined unions' committee (Mr. M'Lood) has just issued a circular to the various Labour organisations throughout the Commonwealth and New Zealand. That remarkable circular contains so many misstatements and puts tlio whole affair in so false a light, that the chamber feels it a duty to make some reply, in justice not only to the mineowners of tho district, but also to t the general public and outside organisations. Mr. M'Leod represents the men as having worked for ten years under wages and conditions worse than in almost any other part of the Commonwealth, simply for the sake of industrial peace, and he says that they liavo now come to the stage'when they realise that peaoo can be bought too dearly. As a matter of fact, the industrial peace that has prevailed on this goldfield for some fifteen years past has been due not to the. long suffering of workers under oppression, but to their knowledge of the fact that thoy were paid for their work. It is wrong to urge, as he implies, that the higher cost of living now as compared with ten years ago has depreciated wages, for it is a fact that cau easily bo _ proved by statistics that the cost of living on these fields is now no higher, and is perhaps on tho whole rather lower, than it was in 1902. Any modifications of the original Arbitration Court award made here from time to time by industrial agreements have been in favour of the workers The secretary of the combined unions' committee endeavours to justify the action of the union leaders in refusing to submit their present demands to the State Arbitration Court, and yet advocates that the dispute should be referred to Mr. Justice Higgins, whose decision could not possibly have any legal force. The chamber has taken up and maintained the legally. unassailable position that if the unions cannot accept the terms offered they must go to the State Arbitration Court."