WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, 27 July 1918, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE COAL CRISIS.

THE EMPLOYERS' VIEW.

(Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, July 26

The employers' reply to the state-: ment of ihe coal miners' grievances again places the men on the defensive. Briefly, it contends that the members of the Miners' Federation are disturbers of the industrial peace; that there ' is no dissatisfaction at the mines; that the miners are the best paid workers in the Dominion; that if they would they might increase the coal output, 200,000 tons a year; that their wages have advanced to a greater extent than has the cost of living; that the employers have no intention of speeding up; that they have no control over the retail price of coal; that their profits are not excessive, averaging no more than 3.7 per cent upon the capital invested, and that no duty is cast upon the Government to compel a conference between the employers and the men. These contentions arc supl ported by a mass of evidence which, I on its face, seems to justify them in every respect. i THE MEN'S RETORT. ' : I No doubt the men's retort will appear in due course. Meanwhile the two I statements in the reply emphatically j challenged in an unofficial way by the I workers, are that there is no dissatisfaction at the mines and thai no case I has been made out for the interference !of the Government. The employers, it is asserted, have mistaken the efforts of the men to secure an. amiablesettlement for an indication, of satisfaction with their conditions, and have scoffed at Governmnt intrference because they fear an unbiased examination of the facts. The men, whatever their' reason may be, are entitled to some credit for having kept the work at the mines going, and neither side, with a just cause, should •objecfc--<to Government intervention. ,If the lowest wage paid is £3 a week, and if the highest might be nearly £7 without "speeding up" the owners on this score surely have no ground to be apprehensive of the closest investigation. CITY MILK SUPPLY. ! So far the ratepayers have shown no disposition to take the City Council 's proposed solution of the milk supply very seriously. The majority of them regard the Milk Committee's scheme rather with incredulity than with disapproval. The friends of municipal trading are delighted by the Council's conversion to their view, but with the Mayor standing aloof from the scheme and the President of the Greater Wellington Electors' Association condemning it as >a hazardous experiment even they are not very hopeful of seeing it in operation during the next decade. Among frivolous people the Council's muddling of the milk supply over a long series of years has become a standing jest and its efforts towards reform will have to take some more tangible shape than a 'scheme' before those who have found no humour in the situation will entertain any very sanguine hopes of a improvement BUTTER PRICES. The conference that has been going on between the Hon. D. H. Guthrie, the Minister in Charge of Imperial Supplies, the Hon. W. D. S. MacDOnald, the President of the Board of Trade, and the Dominion Butter Committee during the the past few days has had nothing to do with the retail price of butter. Its business has been merely to equalise the price obtained by the factories for their outputs. Hitherto the factories supplying the local market have been at some disadvantage compared with those shipping.iov London in that they obtained nostiars of the profits realised by the Imperial authorities onf the sale of yb.ut-ter..not required for their own pur- ft Ypbses- for civilisation consumption. '■jTlris in all pobability will be remedied. . the shipping [factories having, 'fatten a very generous view of theposition, but the Ministers are averse Ho. any advance in the local price and! it is unlikely "anything of the kind will be permitted.