STATE COAL MINES BILL.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 1 November 1901, Page 4

STATE COAL MINES BILL.

Extracts from the Debate

The Premier—Coal could be delivered f.o.b. at Greymouth and Westport for 10s a ton. The Union Company’s charge for shipment to Wellington was 5s a ton, and when the coal was then sold to the Government at 21s or 22s 6d a ton, the profit thup made was unusually large.

Tne Government could put coal on board ship at 10s a ton, and do it at a profit, the charge including 2s lOd for cutting. . . . . Last year we imported from Australia coal worth £90,000 about 180,000 tons—and this, in a country teeming with coal, showed that something was very wrong. When it was proposed, in face of the Commonwealth tariff, to put an import tax on Australian coal,'objection was at once taken that, whatever the tariff, an import tax would result in further raising the price of coal in the colony, and that the importation of Australian coal .was the only means of securing a reasonable price. There was a great deal of force in a contention of that kind, but it was not a credit to the colony that it was necessary to import such a quantity of coal. The Government had excellent opportunity for cheap working. Coal could be goi out by adits without the need of shafts, there was a railway partly made, and in one case the whole thing was in the Government’s hands. It was argued that the working of a State coal mine would give the Government more opportunity for patronage, that the Government would be extregent, and that the cost of working would be double. But men working in the State coal mine would not receive more than working for a private employer. . . . He admitted that only two or three coal mining companies in New Zealand had yielded a direct return to their shareholders. But where there had been no direct return, thousands had in some cases been added to capital out of profits, and in many cases failure to give return had arisen out of mistakes of working, errors in the initial stages, and insufficiency of capital; money had been sunk and exhausted before enough had been spent to make the initial expenditure ronumerative, consequently it had been lost The obsolete class of the coal carrying steamers might have something to do with the amount of freight.