COAL MINING INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 261, 31 July 1919, Page 6

COAL MINING INDUSTRY

BOARD OF TRADE'S RECOMMENDATIONS EXPLAINED

ARGUMENTS AGAINST PUBLIC OWNERSHIP By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, July 30. The Board of Trade lias issued the tollowing for publication:— The attention of the .Board of Trade, which is at present in Christchurch, was drawn to the terms of a resolution passed i\t a meeting of the Woolstou Borough Council on Monday night. Tho reso.ution declared in favour of public ownership and control of the mining, transportation, and distribution of coal, with adequate representation of workers on the Board of Coutroi, and condemned tho proposal 'for semi-private control of the coal mining industry, with a State guarantee of dividends, by private sharenolders, embodied in the Board of Trade's report.

'Air. W. G. 11' Donald, acting chairman of the board, pointed out that a good deal of misapprehension appeared to exist regarding the nature and scope of the board's recommendations on the establishment of a Dominion Coal Board to take over tho existing coal companies with their assets and liabilities at a valuation, such valuation to' be determined on the average market yaluo of the . shares of the existing companies for a period of three years immediately preceding the establishment of the Dominion Coal Board, details to be calculated and determined by a specially appointed commission. The Board of Trade never recommended that the present sharebrokers in all tho present companies should bo guaranteed any return. What the board did recommend was that the shareholders in the proposed company of the Coal Board should 'ne guaranteed a pure interest rate of i per cent, on their paid-up capital. The Woolston Borough Council have apparently overlooked the fact that rationalisation, as recommended by their resolution, can only bo brought about by purchase or _ confiscation. Presumably they cannot intend to recommend that the interests of the present shareholders should be confiscated, therefore their proposal amounts' to direct purchase. The money, to effect this object must be found by the Government, unless, as was suggested recently, by Mr. Holland, M.P. for Grey, the other industries of the country should be taxed to provide the funds. If the Government borrows the money to effect the purchase it must guarantee to pay interest, and in this event it would pay the interest to the bondholders, who would have no direct incentive to see that the coalmining venture of the State" waS- efficiently managed, whereas under the recommendation of the Board of Trade tlie board was of opinion that it would be beneficial to the coalmining industry as a whole to foster a higher degree of enterprise, initiative and resourceful management, and tho accumulation out of the profits of the industry of a fund adequate to its future development, without' its becoming a burden upon the other industries of tho Dominion. Therefore the board's recommendation if given effect to would amount to the'establishment of a partnership between .the State, Capital and Labour in the coalmining industry, and thereby combine the undoubted advantages of a. centralised policy and management with those which may reasonably be expected from the representation of labour and of the consumers through the State on the controlling body. Such a body would for the first time give the mineworkers a voico in the determination of tho business policy of the industry and in the conduct or the management, thereby improving their status and alleviating, if not removing .entirely, the causes of industrial strife and misunderstanding, both of which have been a marked feature of tho trade's history during recent years< to the great detriment of the entiro community. The proposal to raise by taxation the money to buy out the present shareholders amounts to a levy on other industries for the benefit of tho coalmining industry and is an unsound principle.