The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, MAY 6. SOME COAL REFLECTIONS.

Taihape Daily Times, 6 May 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, MAY 6. SOME COAL REFLECTIONS.

(With wnieh ift Incorporated The 'fatnape Poirt tad WaftsaiTao News).

From, home sources, as well as from overseas, intelligence is almost daily arriving which leaves no doubt in the most hopeful, and optimistic miuds about the present, being a time of war, pestilence, and famine. No part of the world seems cxtempf. ?vom nt Toast two. of these scourges, and all experience some of the evil results of Avar, even if they arc not tried by actual fighting. The great upheaval precipitated by Germany is having the effect of more or less disastrously lessening life in all civilised countries. It is needless to recount the ravages of the epidemic we arc- satisfied to call influenza, for it has left none free from its inroads upon human life, and upon the health of those it has left alive. Famine is more or less severely felt everywhere amongst civilised communities; in arenas of war it is largely caused by destruction and the failure to produce as in peace times. Where the sound of guns and the clash of: arms are not heard there is the abhorrent robber and profiteer, whose cold-blooded selfishness is no less deadly to human life and health than war itself. German lust for power caused war; the author of the famine is the unwholesome trade-thief, or profiteer, and the two working in combination have afflicted the peoples of the earth with famine. War, pestilence, and

famine are the natural fruits of man's greed and lust for power, and, reason a? one will, no other conclusion can be arrived at. All arc equally deadly to human life, and it is indeed questionable whether the privations of famine are not doing a work more deadly and lasting, more frightful, filling mankind with greater fear, than war and pestilence combined. Famine reaches the point of greatest strain upon hllman endurance, and forbearance when greed reaches out- its tentacles furthest in times of greatest stress. At this moment British sweaters ami profiteers are troubling the Empire in their manoeuvring of coal-production. Coal-owners in New Zealand, it seems, have timed their efforts to further extort with the coal difficulty in England. In fact, coal is causing ni'dre uneasy moments in New Zealand to-day than any other subject. The Acting-Prime Minister says the situation is so serious that goods and passenger trains may have to cease running, arid, he adds, unless the Government improves its supplies he looked with trepidation to the com- i ing winter. If the Government can I improve its supplies, as suggested, why is it not dono? Why have any cause for

trepidation? Why allow the few selfish men who have got possession of the country's coal-beds to cause a coal famine? Why permit these apostles of greed to say the people of this country shall not have coal for <any purpose unless they pay ten times what it is worth? Yesterday there also came a message from the Coal Commission that is in session in B'rite-ln. Sydney Webb, a stalwart British patriot, in giving evidence, urged the nationalisation of coalmines. The who] e system of profit-making was on its trial. and there would certainly be trouble if an attempt was made to revert to pre-war conditions. Sydney Webb told

the Commission that it was a cold, uncontrovertible fact that, it cost less to compensate for accidents in pit? than to prevent them. To. realise the terrible effect of a coal famine of extended duration we need only see the relationship between coal and population. Britain is rich in coalfields; Ireland has none. In the year 1750 the population of Ireland was nearly half that of Britain; coal made its appearance in British industries, and in 1901 the population of Ireland was only oneninth that of Britain. In agricultural Ireland population had only increased from three and a-half to four millions and a-half, while Britain built up wealth and increased its population from seven millions to thirty-seven millions. We can. therefore, have some conception of what must happen if Britain is suddenly deprived of that source of power upon which its industries depend. Likewise, we have no difficulty in picturing the sufferings in our homes, of mothers with their youngfamilies, and of the terrible consequences to ordinary life, as well as to industries in New Zealand if a few men are allowed, to say the country shall have no coal unless it pays what the Alleged owners like to demand for it. The vital question is, are coal-owners profiteering'? We say at once that any person who reads the .reports of the Coal Commission in B'ritain hasn't a vestige of doubt left possible to him about the heinousness of the acts of British coal-owners. Sydney Webb pointed out that half-a-crown a ton increase caused consumers to pay an additional £25,000,000. During the war the Coal Controller took £10,000,000; the Excchequer £10,000,000, and the coal-owners £5,000,000. The Government, 'in allowing the increase, put £5,000,000 into the pockets of coal magnates who did not need it. The profits raked, in amounted to thirteen pence per ton in 19.13, totalling £13,,000000, while in 1918 they had grown

to nearly four shillings a ton, totalling £39,000,000, and this after £8,000,000 had been deducted for royalties. The position was forcefully put by that dour, clever Scotsman, Robert Smillie, when he impressed upon the Commission with a bang of the table, that for 45 years Miners had invested their lives in the mines, and did not receive a single penny more than was essential to keep them alive, while shareholders got back the -whole of their capital in 10 years. "Is this equitable or just, between Capital and Labour?" shouted Mr Smillie to a witness, who coolly replied: "It is difficult to capitalise human life or risk." Are not our New Zealand coal-owners closing down their coal-production in f.fee of an approaching bitter winter that they may pursue the horror-producing practices of the British coal magnates It was sworn in evidence that coal in Britain cost three shillings per ton to mine, and that it was sold at forty-nine shillings. Coal in New Zealand is more easily accessible, and, in all probability, costs about a similar amount to raise, and it is passed on to Taihapc consumers at forty-live shillings a ton, but no poor person is allowed to buy more than a few bags at a time, and the price thereby amounts up to from, forty-eight shillings to sixty shillings per ton. Prices, whatever turn they make, invariably become most disastrous to the very people they should favour. Profiteering by coal-owners in this country is closely related to that in Britain. We pointed out the dishonesty of a piece of coal-trickery that no Government should permit. Ton per cent increase of men's wages is given and ten per cent is put on the price of coal to recoup the liberality of the mine-owners. Sir Leo Money says the miners are calling upon us to save the nation from final disaster. We must take bach the coal which should never have been admitted to be private property. That a landlord .should have a right to the earth for a mile in depth is fsUeieal and iniquilious. says Sir Leo Money. Every year in Britain the men who work in mines for just what is essential to keep life in them, contribute 1250 of their lives, and 150,000 are wounded in making coal-millionaires. Half of these lives could be saved by better methods, and yet it goes on destroying life in the pits and throughout the whole population of the country by the enormous increase in the cost of living it so hugely contributes to. There is no question that demands the attention of the masses of the people in New Zealand, equally with Britain, as coal, which is a fruitful source of the three great curses —war, pestilence, arid famine.