KING COAL.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 143, 29 July 1926, Page 3

KING COAL.

Capital and Labour know all the tricks of the war trade (say s a writer in the Sydney Sun). They are army generals, militaryniinded,, securing strategic positions, fighting to a finish, then arriving at some kind of peace, drawing up some working arrangement, ratified in official arbitration courts, to be contemptuously regarded like another famous treaty, as ‘a scrap of paper’ as soon as they have got their wind .again. Then there’s another war. They don’t always know what it’s about. They only know they’re right. And the community looks on—looks on and pays, always pays. If only these military-minded men would forget that they are generals, if they would become fiddlers the community would have much more fun and have much less to pay, and much more to pay- with, of course. When coal is the subject of the conflict, the whole community is Among commercial commodities coal is king. Everythingwhat we eat, what we wear, what we read; our habits of life; our means of livelihood; the facilities of intercourse and travel; the housing of worship-pers—-everything is involved in the conflict between 'Capital and Labour when coal is concerned. And always. The -agencies of production and exchange rest not day nor night. The gates of the world’s markets are never closed. The ocean liner’s engines are never silent. The furnaces must ever be fed. Electric power (stations and gas works never cease their productions of illuminatives. The cloud of smoke by day is a 'pillar of fire by night. A fundamental thing is coal. Without British coal Australians cannot even win ashes.