WELLINGTON NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1920, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(Our Special Correspondent). THE COAL SETTLEMENT. THE CONSUMER PAYS. WELLINGTON, March 3. Until the new agreement between the Coal Mine Owners’ Association and the Miners’ Federation has been in operation for ai few T months it will be impossible to say exactly how it will affect the consumers. The agreement is admittedly a compromise—a very fair and reasonable compromise—it is tolerably clear the consumers will have to pay a considerably higher price for their coal than they paid in the days before the shortage. The men have obtained high, er wages and better conditions, involving a largo additional expendture on the part of their employers, and this expenditure, inevitably and not improperly will be recovered from the consumers. The price,' it may be presumed, will be carefully watched by the Government, which having endorsed the agreement cannot remain indifferent to its application. REGULATING PRICES. The trouble of the average consumer during the coal shortage, however has not been so much the high prices, as the inadequacy of supplies. Hundreds of housewives have been without other fuel than wood for weeks on end and have paid for half bags of dusty coal, including delivery, at the rate of. £7 or £8 a ton and been thankful to get them. The retailers have been making little profit even at this rate, and it will not be surprising if they seek to do better under the new conditions. This is the tendency the Government and the Board of Trade will have to watch more carefully than they havei in the past. The wage-earners, after all the most longsuffering and apathetic section of tho community, at last have begun to bestir themselves, and if prices are allowed to go on soaring without a corresponding general increase in wages there will be a recurrence of very grave labour troubles. THE ATTITUDE OF LABOUR. The workers’ representatives must share in full measure with the owners’ representatives and the Prime Minister in the credit for the satisfactory conclusion of the Coal Conference. There were stages in the negotiations when but for the conciliatory spirit , of the miners’ delegates the conference might have ended without an agreement. Mr Massey displayed admirable tact and the owners considerable forbearance, but "it was the reasonableness of the miners’ representatives and their evident desire to put an end to petty bickering that .made a settlement on a. broad basis possible. It is hoped this is! symptomatic, of a better spirit growing up between Labour and Capital. Tim danger points now are the railway service and the water front. Both the railwaymen and the waterside workers are breathing threats of direct action if more effective handling of tho cost of living problem does not bring them some relief. NECESSARIES OF LIFE. In these circumstances the demands for increases in the price of bread and milk seem particularly inopportune. The report from Christchurch that the Conference between the Minister of Agriculture, the members of the Board of Trade and the representatives of the millers and bakers had resulted in an arangement by which the price of flour was to be raised by £3 a ton and the price of bread by 2d for tho 41b. loaf, came as a rude shock to housewives who thought the “staff of life” at any rate, was going to stand at the old figure. The protests were so loud and insistent that when they reached the ears of Mr Massey ho had the decisions of the Christ church conference reviewed and it is reported semi-officially this morning that tho advances will be considerably smaller tahn those at first announced. Meanwhile the farmers are demanding more money for the milk they are sending to tho city’s supply station and. apparently another penny a quart will be passed on to the consumers.