THE COMING OF OIL FUEL.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1755, 21 May 1913, Page 8

THE COMING OF OIL FUEL.

CONCERN IN NEWCASTLE. Tho big coal export trade from Now South Wales to tho west coast of South America is being seriously threatened by tho competition of oil fuel. Mr. John Brown, the well-known Newcastle colliery proprietor and shipping merchant, . last week received two letters on the subject from his Valparaiso house.. It was stated that numbers of steamors engaged in the Chilean nitrate trade were using oil fuel in preference to coal, and one nitrate export company declared thnt it had effected a saving of .£12,000 'during the last six months by using oil for that period, as against coal for tho previous six months. Taking into consideration the total cost of the handling and usage of both kinds of fuel, it had been ascertained that oil was lis. 3d. per ton less expensive than coal. It was therefore, a great inducement to take up oil as fuel in preference lo coal.

"That is what we are Retting how, before the 'Panama Canal is opened," said Mr. Brown, in discussing the letters with a Sydney press representative. "What will we get alter it luis been opened? II; is a very serious matter for the men, and also for the collieries. It may mean a reduction in the price of coal, ahd'nlso in wages. How can the proprietors go on in the face of such a slate of affairs? If the men are making claims upon the proprietors, which the latter cannot pay. liondo they expect to get along? A difference nf Hs. 9d. per ton exists in the price of oil aiul coal before the Canal is opened, what will happen after the Canal is opened, and the nil can lie brought -to now markets? That is what we are up against, and we want the men to see it," he concluded.