COAL STOPPAGES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 21, 20 October 1943, Page 5

COAL STOPPAGES

Strong Measures Urged In Australia (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) ' (Received October 19, 7.5 p.m.)) SYDNEY, October 19. Australia’s coal situation is described as having “drifted to the brink of disaster.” This has been the result not of any great wholesale strike throughout the mining industry, but of incessant small dislocations of the steady routine of production. Few days have passed without some mines because of local stoppages being unable to produce. Absenteeism has also contributed heavily toward the reduced output. After record production in 1942, Australian mines this year have lost 2,500,000 tons of available coal, thus necessitating the curtailing of essential industries, transport and domestic fuel services. A total saving of 40,000 tons a week must now be effected in the Commonwealth’s coal consumption. Only shipping will have an absolute priority in the use of coal. Till depleted stocks can be replenished, rationing of eoal for all other uses will be strictly enforced. The new restrictions operate from next, week. Domestic users have been placed on their honour to reduce gas and electricity consumption by 20 per cent. Those who do not are threatened with a “sharp reminder of their responsibilities” when (heir meters are next read and compared with the pre-rationing period. An extensive publicity campaign will be directed toward saving domestic fuel. Every industrial user of coal must reduce consumption by 12J per cent. New or idle plants may not bo brought into operation without the approval of the Department of War Organization of Industry. Fewer Trains Running.

Railway services are to reduce train mileage to save 25 per cent, of their coal. Already the number of trains running has been cut down considerably. As part of the effort to retrieve Australia’s coal position, former coalminers now working in other industries must this month furnish their npmes to the Coal Commissioner. It is stated that 5060 fewer names are on the books of the Australian Miners’ Federation than there were a few years ago. The return of even a proportion of these men to the mines would make a big difference to production, since each miner is able to produce an average of three to four tons of coal a day. Australian nows commentators are unanimous in calling for strong disciplinary measures against the small malcontent section of miners regarded as mainly responsible for the loss of coal production. They fall into three classes — young irresponsible. l ! "protected” from national service by the faet that they are mineworkers; older "dilutees,” many of whom run bookmaking businesses or train greyhounds and absent themselves from work to follow these pursuits; and n few careerists who believe that promoting strikes is a means to securing union leadership.

In attempts to check hold-ups, the Miners’ Federation has fined absentees and strikers a total of £6OOO. However, fining does not appear to have been a deterrent and the suggestion is now strongly made that anyone responsible for industrial unrest must be removed from the coalmining industry and made available for call-up by the military or the Civilian Construction Corps.