The Sun THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1927 A PEACE INDUSTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 222, 8 December 1927, Page 10

The Sun THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1927 A PEACE INDUSTRY

IT may be said that old King Coal is anything but a merry old * soul in Great Britain these days. He is the gloomiest despot in British industry and the thickest-skulled ruler known to the British worker. Things are so bad under his sway that the colliers of the Kingdom are nursing their, wrath for another conflict.

Trouble may not come for some time yet, but a brisk and bitter struggle is inevitable. Nothing has been done in the past year either by the Government or by the mineowners to redeem the lamentable situation and to restore a reasonable standard of prosperity. In the words of Sir Herbert Samuel, a leading authority on the subject, “there is an apathy, an immobility, over the greater part of the field of possible action which nothing can excuse.”

The existing mood among the coalfield hovels and slums that, in too many districts, are a begrimed disgrace to a nation which believes that cleanliness is next to godliness, is to be given representative expression to-day in the House of Commons, where and when the Leader of the Labour Opposition will move a vote of censure on the Tory Government for its policy in respect of the black industry. It is scarcely to be expected that the Labour Party’s action will be productive of much good other than to draw the attention of a tin-hare chasing nation to the plight of the British coalminer and to the callous indifference on the part of a Government toward it.

Though the conditions of the colliers have been improved on some of the larger coalfields, where new pits and efficient plant have wrought an appreciable change in output and wages, the situation on the smaller fields is worse to-day than it has been for many years. Consider, for example, the experience of miners in South Derbyshire. There, since last Christmas, the miners employed in seven collieries have had to be content with four and a'half days’ work a week at the best, but with only three days weekly on an average. The guaranteed minimum wage for day-wage men is 7s 9d a shift; for pithead labourers it is 7s sd. Three days a week at 7s 9d a day ! Is it at all surprising that thousands of British workers to-day have no heart to sing with poets, “England, my England”? Such is the position on a large number of British coalfields where the owners, with characteristic obduracy, refuse to combine in order to make an end to traditional muddle and extravagant, inefficient methods. Though the industry has lost a great deal of its export trade, by which it largely lives, simply because that was the way grandfather made his money and acquired a title and county prestige, no attempt has been made to convert the heat of some of the best fuel in the world into electric power.

Everybody concerned in the industry admits frankly that Britain’s great natural advantages, both of quality and of situation, are, under the existing obsolete system of working coal, simply thrown away. Yet little or nothing has been done to mend the ruinous system. Labour’s plan to nationalise the industry would merely make confusion worse confounded, but the latest Commission’s proposal to vest the ownership of the coal itself in the State, thus doing away with private ownership of mineral royalties and trafficking in leases, is practicable. The Government at one time agreed to establish public ownership of the coal, and to compel the mineowners to remodel their competitive organisation, but, like our own Reform Government, it vacillated on the first available excuse, and finally ran away from responsibility.

SAFETY AT THE CROSSING

VERY considerable relief will be felt by those concerned with the public safety at the apparent success of a new device at Mangere Road level "crossing. The toll of the crossing has been so dreadful that any promise of minimising the danger is most welcome. The innovation at Mangere Road consists of two flashing lights, which are attached to posts on either side of the railway track. These begin to flash when a train is 600 yards away, and continue to flash until the train has passed the crossing. They can be seen miles away, and motorists are said to be enthusiastic concerning their benefit. Thus the crossing will be ridded of its terrors by night, and by day it should be the business of those who cross the line first to make careful observation—in other words, to take that “reasonable care” which the department reasonably expects of them. The new safety system seems so simple that the wonder is it has not been thought of before. It is understood the authorities intend installing it at all level crossings, ancl the hope may be expressed that there will be as little delay as possible in completing the work. Meanwhile, the Railways Department is to be congratulated upon its successful experiment.