NOT CONFISCATION

Evening Star, Issue 24324, 13 October 1942, Page 2

NOT CONFISCATION

THE WAIKATO MINES PREMIER ANSWERS OPPOSITION LEADER (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 12. “ Mr Holland is fully at liberty to relieve his friendly feelings towards the Government, even if he does so in characteristically reckless fashion, or to indulge in an orgy of misrepresentation if that sort of dissipation appeals to him. But I am sorry for his own sake that he has stooped to what appears to be a conscious, if feeble, inaccuracy in describing the control of the Waikato mines for the period of the war as confiscation,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, when referring in an interview to-night to the statement by the Leader of the Opposition. “ Nobody will believe that sort of nonsense,” added the Prime Minister. SPURT IN PRODUCTION IP.A.) AUCKLAND, Oct. 12. “ In the first week after the resumption of work, and in spite of various interruptions, the Waikato mines produced 16,152 tons of coal, and in the second week 16,832 tons. The figures for the second week are from 800 to 1,000 tons above the pre-strike average,” said the Minister of Mines, Mr Webb, when interviewed to-day. “ We had to choose between coal and chaos,” said the Minister, commenting on the arrangement made between the employers, the workers, and the Government regarding wartime control of the mines. “ Making the mines a Go-vernment-controlled industry is purely a war measure. When the mines resumed a fortnight ago over 60 factories, in addition to freezing and fertiliser works, were within a_ week of exhaustion of their coal supplies. Had the strike continued for another week, all industries in the North Island would have closed down.” Discussing the settlement of the strike, Mr Webb said: “Past experience should have taught those who were crying out for the use of thd big stick that such methods only aggravate a delicate situation. The miners will not be bludgeoned. Moist of them can see reason, and reason ultimately prevailed. Neither the owners nor the Government believed that imprisonment of the. men would have got the country out of economic trouble.” The full powers of the State, the Minister added, must be behind a maximum war effort. 1