Greymouth Evening Star, AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1901. A PECULIAR PETITION.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 23 March 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star, AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1901. A PECULIAR PETITION.

The good folks of Westport are decidedly “canny,” and not likely to let chances pass them. In a most ingenious note they some time ago invited the Admiralty to step in and qpen one of their mines. Now they are first in the field in regard to a State mine, and have a petition in course of signature to the Premier, in which they firstly state that they consider it absolutely necessary in the interests of the colony Government should open a State that mine, affirming that the areas of bituminous coal is very limited and already a large part of it in the hands of private companies. Having thus cleared the way on general and colonial grounds the petitioners abandon the tone of the colonial economist, and “ drop down ” to narrow localism and advocacy of one particular spot, in one particular locality. The petition in

clause four says that a large portion of the Cardiff lease known as the Cave Area has been ascertained, by boring and expert examination, to contain from 20 to 30 years’s output —at the rate of say 1000 tons per day—of first-class coal, which can be tapped at a very moderate preliminary outlay; as the necessary plant is already on the ground. Further, the petition declares, that the colony has expended £50,000 on a railway to this mine for the development of this coalfield, irrespective of vested interests, which total a very large amount, and the benefit of such expenditure is being lost to the State and the district while the mines continue to remain idle and unproductive. The petition goes on to argue that the would suffer no less by working suclm mine, and points to the excellence of the Westport harbor as an extra inducement. Firstly then in the petition we have the colonial question —and a question of importance to the wage-earners the world over—of coal mines being worked by the State ; this is a subject worthy of deep thought, but alas how quickly the Westportonians lose sight of the greater question in the narrow and dwarfed one of local interest. “Let the mine at our door be opened ; none else can compare with it,” is the cry. Evidently “ State-worked ” coal mines is a minor consideration with the petitioners, for in the last clause they say “In the event, however, of the Government having decided to try their initial experiment of a State mine in some other portion of the Colony, we pray, in the interests of the miners and residents of this district, that the Government provide the necessary capital at a nominal rate of interest to enable the miners of this district to open up and work this mine, as it is ruinous to the interests of the workers and the Colony that these mines should continue to remain idle and unproductive.” Surely the petition is a unique document. Divided into three heads, it advocates:—

1. The broad question of Stateowned coal mines.

2. That putting: aside No. 1, which after all is an abstract question scarcely within the sphere of practical politics, we, your petitioners, crave the working of our own little coal mine by the State; and 3. That in the event of such being decided against us, we in a most pathetic manner crave that you, the Right Honourable the Premier, will lend us the necessary capital to run the show—our little coal mine—incur own way.

If the petition had consisted of the first three clauses in favor of Stateworked coal mines, it would have been deserving of consideration. As it is, it is but an abject appeal to open and run a particular mine for the benefit of a few persons in a particular locality.