MINERS PUNISHED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 56, 4 September 1944, Page 4

MINERS PUNISHED

PROSECUTIONS IN AUSTRALIA

• SYDNEY, September 3. Fines totalling £520 and costs £41 have been imposed on 104 miners charged with having failed to work at a N£T South Wales colliery on August 1. The penalties ranged from £1 for juveniles up to £10 -for second -of * fenders. The -" prosecutions were" a sequel to a 18-day t stoppage when strikers objected to working with a 60-year-old miner, contending he should retire on a pension. , Th- e n ..stoPPage, which was opposed by the Miners' Federation, caused the loss of 12,000 tdha' of coal. '■ ■ ". The debate on the Opposition's motion asking a vote of censure upon the Government as a . result of the coal situation- will *>c continued this week. ■■'■>■ In spite of the fact, that last week's Australian coal .production was the best since 1942, there is ho likelihood o± any easing of the rationing restrictions. A high rate of production will require to- be - maintained for a- considerable time before it will be safe to lift the restrictions. [It has been authoritatively stated £? ™nnnq? eSt frOm th^ United States for 30,000 tons of coalfor use in the mrect Pacific zone of operations has had to be refused because of the low Snlrft 1? A"?tralia- ?n addition, coal IS? °r New Zeaia»^ and South America, some of it for naval purj poses, could not be sent.