The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1928. THE COAL INDUSTRY.

Evening Star, Issue 20058, 26 December 1928, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1928. THE COAL INDUSTRY.

Reviews of the year now so near its dose make it plain th U there is some disappointment over Britain’s slowness in training the place she held among the world’s trading and manufacturing nations before the war. The President of the Federation of British Industries describes 192 Sas the quietest year since the Armistice. Without much doubt the chief reason is the stale of the coal industry. A special effort has been made to give the out-of-work miners and their families in South Wales a Christmastide which will temporarily lift them out of the slough of despond in which they have dwelt for many years. In some of the valleys the proportion of unemployed is as high as fJO per cent. Nor is the plight of many of those who are not chronically out of work much better. South Wales is the district in which stagnancy and distress arc, most acute, but all over Britain the coal miners, except those who are lucky enough to bo employed in pits which are working good seams with the most modern plant, arc in a false economic position. They arc endeavouring to pit pre-war rates of pay against present-day commodity price levels. It is not a case of exploitation by the colliery owners. A weeding out process is in operation, and the obsolete pits are going to the wall. This process is being accompanied by wage-reduction, too oiten only a preliminary to closing down altogether. During the last week in August three pits offered at auction in Yorkshire failed to find a buyer, and a strike was in progress in Featherstone against a proposed cut of 10 per cent, in the basic rates of wages. And in Warwickshire, where lock-out notices had been posted at a number of collieries, a stoppage was averted only by the miners agreeing to accept a reduction' in wages at those pits which could clearly show their inability to make both ends meet. There was also trouble over a proposed wages cut at a big pit in Nmrth Wales. Of these disputes the Featherstone affair was by far the most serious. Attempts to settle it by direct negotiations failed. The trouble arises from the peculiar way in which miners’ wages are reckoned. The collective agreements now in force in Ehe various coalfields lay down the percentage additions to basic wage-rates that must be paid, but do not lay down the basic rates themselves. They are accordingly open to revision pit by pit, and in most of the disputes in progress in Britain the colliery managements are seeking to reduce their wage-costs by this method. The miners are in a weak position for resistance; but the Featherstone men seem to have reached their sticking point.

The problem is not confined to Britain. Recent statistics show the reason why. In 1926 the world’s coal consumption was no greater than it was in 1913, although during those thirteen years new coal resources have been tapped, and many new sources of supply have appeared in competition on the world’s markets. There is, in fact, a world war in coal. New Zealand has experienced its effects, hut not so acutely as' New South Wales, whose coal industry has recently been the subject of investigation by both Commonwealth and State Governments. The export trade is declining to" vanishing point. Hitherto it has been the custom to blame alternately the miners and the colliery owners for perpetually bickering instead of working harmoniously. The trouble - , however, is deeper seated. The other Australian States have been developing their own coal resources (South Australia being tho only State possessing none) and all the States have been increasingly importing oil fuel, while electricity derived from the combustion of local lignite deposits or from water-

power, has also eaten into the coal mining industry proper.' Watters came to a head when it was found cheaper to import British coal into South Australia than to purchase from New South Wales, ft can, therefore, be easily understood why New South Wales has been steadily losing her overseas coal markets, principally in the Far East. South African, Indian, and Burmese mines are now the chief sources of supply for the Dutch East Indies, the Phillipines, and British Malaya. South Africa is the most formidable competitor in what has been termed “ the coal war of the Indian Ocean.” Low costs of production appear to be the determining factir; and in this connection it is only necessar/ to mention that in the Soux.li African pits there is only one white man employed for every thirty-eight underground Vorkers, to understand the dilemma of the New South Wales industry.