A COAL COMEDY.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 May 1919, Page 4

A COAL COMEDY.

It is hoped the public of this Dominion are fully enjoying the little comedy that is being played by members of their Government in combination with the owners of coal-mines. The respective parts have been badly rehearsed, or they arc not correctly understood, for one player or the other is creating a uniquely ludicrous situation by giving a false statement of the plot on which the play is based. The subject is much too serious to be treated with levity, for while Government are tolling people, who are suffering, quite different stories about the real cause of coal shortage from those which the coal-owners arc stating, that suffering is becoming increasingly intense. The Acting-Prime Minister blames the shortage to want of output at the mines, while the coal-owners say they have plenty of coal, and, if they could got railway trucks to distribute it conditions among the people would bo vastly improved. We wonder who is responsible, is it the mine-owners and the workers, or is it that the Government will not furnish trucks? And, whichever it may be, is it nobody’s business to ascertain the facts about so \ itally important a. matter? There is so much trickery being practiced and winked at by authority, that a condition of public hopelessness for improvement prevails, and' will only bo removed when the next general election takes place. ;If coal-owners arc sincere in their complaint about not being able to get railway trucks, then TailiapCj people can safely hold the Government responsible, through its want of management of the public railways. There are either trucks, or there are no trucks; if there are no trucks, why not? If there arc trucks, why are they not at the disposal of the coalmine-owners, so that the coal famine may be abated? We do not think for a minute that more coal is being used to-day than was used before the war. and yet there were trucks to carry coal then; what has become of those trucks? Perhaps 'they are all worn out, however, and the Department has been unable to get labour to build more. This introduces another piece of Ministerial dishonest by-play in the Public Works Department. The Minister has been ostcutaciously bragging about plenty of work, but it had to stand over for want of labour. Now that, men have returned from, the war and want the wo-k that was going begging, the Minister had the audacity to admit there is no work; that the Public Works Department is full up, and cannot employ any more. Such a n advanced state of insincerity now prevails that we know it is useless to try to effect any improvement; this Dominion’s Augean Stables will only receive a thorough cleansing when a general election is made possible. It would require a fair sized volume in which to record the obvious trickery, cunning, and dishonesty which is being practised to the public hurt on all sides.