BRITISH COAL CRISIS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 August 1925, Page 2

BRITISH COAL CRISIS

[Australia & N.Z. Cable Association.] COAL SUBSIDY. LONDON, August 3. It is authoritatively stated eollierien already closed will lie included in the Government subsidy scheme, if the owners decide to reopen them. Air Churchill has prepared the details. The personnel of the Royal Commission has not yet- been decided on, but Labour already has objected to the Chairmanship being given to Sir Auckland Geddes. The question has lieen raised as to whether the Treasury is going to control the coal prices, in order to minimise the losses in connection with the subsidy, and to ensure that the Stateaid shall not be abused. It is expected that Parliament will vote a round sum of say ten millions on the understanding that there will be a supplementary estimate if more is required. LONDON, August 4. Mr Ramsay MacDonald, speaking at Duniuow, said that at the eleventh hour. Air Baldwin had informed the miners that the Government would give no subsidy, and that wages must come down. If the Government fought i heir policy out, one would have respected them. Instead they doubled up. The reason was not that they changed their minds, hut they say pile unity outside which they were afraid to face. There was behind the unusual unitv of the Trades Union Movement, the still greater unity of public opinion behind the men. The Government came to a sound conclusion, hut it is an abominably bad way. GERMAN PAPER’S VIEWS. BERLIN. August 3. The "Deutsche Allegemaine Zeitung” representing the mine owners’ interests comments bitterly on Afr Baldwin’s statement regarding the British coal dispute. Mr Baldwin, it says, thought a few gentle speeches on the union of capital and labour would solve the problem. Then, on the eve of the explosion, he had recourse to a method, the consequences of which arc incalculable. He succumbed to cold blooded extortion. The newspaper asks if Afr Baldwin is willing to subsidise all the British industries, and to transform them into State pensioners. The crisis, it says, is really international, and is due to the fact that one-third of the coal produced in the world cannot he used. This fact must lie grasped before a real solution can he found.