BIG INDUSTRIES CLOSING DOWN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1012, 27 February 1912, Page 4

BIG INDUSTRIES CLOSING DOWN.

The strike about ironworks at Lithgow, which has continued for over six months, is still unsettled, and, as is always the case, many others than those directly concerned and their dependents are suffering. The Sydney Water and Sewerage Board made a contract with Messrs Hoskins, the owners of the ironworks, for the supply of pipes for the amplification of the water service. This work has had to be hung up owing to the stoppage of work at Lithgow, and hundreds of men have been thrown idle, while householders in the outer suburbs are being seriously inconvenienced through being unable to get a water supply to their homes. Now a shipment of water pipes and iron for the manufacture of the rest is being brought from England, and Messrs Hoskins are seriously considering whether it will not be better to import all the iron they require instead of manufacturing it locally. A still more calamitous event than the stoppage ot the Lithgow works is even now pending in the Wolgan Valley, where the colossal oil and shale industry, established there in recent years, is about to close down under a strike. Here many hundreds of hands will in a few days be among the unemployed, while invested capital exceeding a million sterling will be yielding no return. Of ruptures about the wharves and in the coal-mining industry there would seem to be no end.