COAL INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 135, 5 December 1938, Page 15

COAL INDUSTRY

CONFERENCE TO BE HELD

INCREASING PRODUCTION

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

WESTPORT, December 4.

A conference of coal-mine workers and mine owners will be called shortly for the study of wages and a means ■of increasing the production of coal, and also to bring about more economical ' productibn,said the Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb), during an address to a gathering of Stockton residents on Saturday afternoon.

It was essential, continued the Minister, that if the coal industry was to be kept going, an effort would have to: be made to compete against electricity. As far as he was concerned, he would rather see the coal miners on the land than under ground.

In the meantime, however, the coal industry had to go on and he expected that the coal companies should receive a reasonable return on their outlay. During his term of office he had done much for the Stockton mine, which was now supplying two-thirds of the coal used for the Westport railways. The outside demand, so far as social and industrial orders were concerned, would not be enough to keep the Stockton mine working a week.

New Zealand was short of thousands of tons of bituminous coal for gas at this time. If New Zealand could not produce this necessary type of coal the only possible thing to do was to import it from abroad, and this step he was against. ,

From the conference which he proposed to hold, he hoped for the best form of co-operation. He' hoped that the men and officials would find a way to increase production. If this conference could not come to an agreement, the Government could not. However, he had full confidence that a way would be found by the conference.