WALLSEND COAL MINES.

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

WALLSEND COAL MINES.

We are disposed to give Mr. Mathoson full credit for all. he claims in regard to urging prospecting for coal in this district, and wo also affirm that be has invariably been foremost among those desiring to advance the general interests of the district, but in regard to the Wallsend Coal Mine we think he is wrong. He quotes the failure of the first company. That failure, however, was not duo to the question of good or bad coal, but to the cost of sinking the shaft far exceeding the original estimate ; and more than exhausting the Company’s capital ; to the lack of a market for the coal; and to the scarcity of money and general depression then existing in the colony. If it was o question of quantity of coal, how came it that the Coal Pit Heath Mine, which was putting out the finest coal in the Southern Hemisphere, was also closed down ? As to the efforts of the Westport Coal Company it is unnecessary to say more than has been said. There are a score of practical miners who worked in the mine, including several underground deputies who are prepared to give evidence on oath that there is good coal, and plenty of it, in the mine, and this we consider is far more reliable testimony than can be given by defunct companies whose calculations were wrong and who worked under entirely different conditions to those prevailing to-day.