The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated “The West Coast Times.” THURSDAY, APRIL 7th, 1921. THE BRITISH MINING CRISIS.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1921, Page 2

The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated “The West Coast Times.” THURSDAY, APRIL 7th, 1921. THE BRITISH MINING CRISIS.

A rapacious policy on the part of tlit’ miners of the United Kingdom remarks the Wellington “Dominion." has done a great deal to intensity the severe depression of trade and industry now being experienced in that country. Indeed, it is well within the facts to say Unit many thousands of Blitish workers in other industries lire and have been unemployed as a result of the attempt made by the min,TS extort concessions the coal industry is unable to bear It is in light of these well-established tint 1m that the extravnmutch of the demands the minors are now making and threatening to enforce by a disastrous strike is best

apprceiaU’d. I 'e crisis has nii.en a the moment u hen Government control „l tile imlnstn is being "•moved, hot ,1,0 whole controversy turns upon all attempt bv the miners to extort impossible wages from a non-paying industry. Tile position the official representatives of the miners are endeavouring to obscure with loud talk and strike threats is simply that with wages and prices at their present level, the pro- ; diction ol coal in the United Kingdom is being conducted at a considerable loss. At the end of last calendar year, the industry as a whole showed a credit balance of £11.090.000, but S.r Robert Horne (President of the Board of Trade) has stated that in existing conditions it is involved in a weekly deficit of £2,000,000. The credit balance fmm last year has, of course, long since been extinguished, and replaced bv a heavy debit balance. The latest" available figures of the industry instinctively illustrate the results which must be expected when a section of i.obuuV, particularly il it is an gaged in a key industry, for a time extorts more than its due. The recent history of the British coal industry is that of an increase in the wages hill, enormous in itself, and out of all proportion to production, and the price.obtainable for coal. It is true that since the .strike settlement in the latter part " off lasit year, increased w'.agjes. have been paid in consideration of an increased wages have been paid in consideration of an increased output, but this development' arose too late to avert the troubles in which the industry is now involved. The extent to which the miners are responsible for these troubles in which the ondustry is now involved. The extent to which the miners are responible for these troubles is demonstrated in the fact that the average wages-eost of a ton of coal, which was (Is Id in 1913, ranged last year from 22s 8d„ in the March quarter, to an estimated amount of 30s. in the December quarter. Nearly five times as much as was paid in wages for each ton of coal raised in Britain in the latter part of last year, as was paid in 1913. It is another instructive fact that out of the total proceeds of the industry, which amounted last year to £388,364,000. Labour obtained £200,099.000- almost exactly 70 per cent. Other working costs absorbed a considerable part of the remaining 30 per cent. Profits, together with depreciation interest on debentures and other loans, and capital adjustments, only amounted in the aggregate to £28,000.000. The enormous increase in miners wages and in the wages cost of coal was only made possible by an ah--1 normal European demand for coal at almost any price—a demand which could not be expected to last. I lie total output of coal in Britain last ye,i, r was 229.295,000 tons, and between 205 and 210 million tons were disposed of commercially. Of the latter amount more than 160 million tons were sold for inland consumption at a loss of at least 10s. a ton. The operations of the year were only balanced on the right side by selling some 44 million tons of export and bunker coal at extravagantly inflated prices. Even while this state of affairs lasted. British trade and shipping industry were heavily handicapped by tile high price of coal, and now that European counj tries are able to obtain supplies of relatively cheap coal from America, and France is obtaining increased quantities of reparation coal from Germany, the whole arrangement has collapsed. The extent to which the prices of British export coal have slumped is apparent in comparison of market quotuitions on the eve of the national coal strike in October and at the end of January last. As compared with the earlier date, the price of large steam coals had dropped in January by from 55s to 57s fid per toil—that is to say, 1

to one half of the October price. Small coals dropped in January to less than i one-third of the prices that ruled three ! nionths earlier. Apart from the present strike threat . tlie immediate outlook in the British _ coal industy, now that the ephemeral , prosperity of the last year or two has vanished, is most unpromising. It is quite obvious, however, that the onl\ remedy is to bring the working costs of the industry into line with the pi ices obtainable for its product. In their present attitude, the official representatives of the miners are simply trilling with the hard facts of the case. In view of what the miners have done to spread unemployment and distress in other industries, the proposal that their industry should he subsidised in order that it may pay “a wage greater than the coal can at present yield” is well described as amazing elfroStory. Even if no such consideration entered, the proposal, of course would he inadmissible. It would mean subsidising the miners at the expense of other workers, many of whom, as Sir Robert Borne Has pointed out. are much worse off than the miners. There is no escape trom the fact that the Petitions prosperity the industry lately enjoyed rested wholly upon the abnormal prices temporarily obtainable for export ’onl. In these circumstances the slump in expoit prices must he regarded and accepted iis a return towards normal conditions' to which the miners are hound sooner or later to adjust themselves. Any action on their part which hampers the reorganisation of the industry on a i sound, economic basis will merely pile | disaster on disaster, and certainly will | not improve their own prospects. A ' period of dislocation and unemployment is inevitable in any case, and the miners will find their only route to improved conditions in co-operating with their employers to cheapen the production of coal. ’Honest effort on these lines would ' greatly modify the necessity of reducing wages'. It is fairly plain in any case that they have come to the end of their tether in trading upon the necessities of the rest of the community, and more especially of their fellow-workers.