NEW ZELAND'S GREATEST COLLIERY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2159, 27 May 1914, Page 14

NEW ZELAND'S GREATEST COLLIERY.

FEW Now Zealanders sitting in ' slippored easo before' tho bright glow of a Coalbrookdalo firo in tho present winter ovcniiigs .I'ealiso wliat a vast amount of human •brains, and human labour has been needed to fill tho family grate. They do not see the toworing slopes of Mount -\Rochfort piled higb/'abovo tho Westport ;ilats, nor tho bleak mining townships ;pcr,ched two thousand feet in the air amid the mountain rocks and .crags. Their mind's oyo docs not conjure up tho wonderfully impressive picturo seldom forgotten by thoso who seo it, of tho. endless array of coal-laden trucks ;«trotching for miles across country— .thousands of them, each with its twelve ;hundredweight of coal, and moving ;slowly along without a sign of human .'ngdncy, as if endowed with a life of .their own. ',; Nor, does' .tlio.'slcek citizen farming his bands at tho blaze often .think of tho grimy-faced men miles ,away under-ground, , , hewing tho coal for 'him,, of tho patient horses that-spend their lives in the inky depths of the wines, nor 'of thoboys'bitsily at work by .flickering oil lamps in the streets and J).y\v;a.ys' uf tho .black city. ~ . • 'Bpmo idea of the magnitude of the jWcslport Coal Company's enterprise," .whence comes New. Zealand's most fa;inous coalr may bo'gained'from' the fact that it is tho 'mainstay of Westport, with its population'of nearly five thousand people, and that six other townships have been directly brought into being 'by .'it., - .The company's mines alonp aro responsible for about onethird of tho amount, of coal produced in';, the Dominion each year, and its total output has already reached over 10.Q00.000 tons. ' The mines have many years' lifo before them, and from timo to'timo extensive blocks of virgin coun-. try;aro being opened; up m tho company's leases. When tho mines are working up to their full strength somo 1200 men arc employed,, and it is estimated that tho total muster of these, with their dependents, must be someii'uoro in tho neighbourhood of 4000.

WESTPOIT COAL 'COMPANY'S MINES & WOKS.