The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1919. "FOOLS STEP IN."

Taihape Daily Times, 12 June 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1919. "FOOLS STEP IN."

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.”

some kind person has been good enouoh to send to us, per medium of the liost Office, several cuttings from newspapers, British and Dominion, bearing discussions of the .‘‘Coal’’ question, and he asks us to “Chew them over!” We are grateful to our 'correspondent, although he has not obliged us with his name, because we can gather that he is a thoughtful, educated person, who is taking an intelligent interest in the most disastrously menacing problems of this unprecedently troublous -period in the WOl‘ld"S history. One cutting is stress«ed with blue pencil, indicating, pro-; bably, that it is his “Big Bertha,” and as that contains material for discussion beyond the limits of this column our invitation “to chew them over” will be accepted in giving it sole attention. Professors of economies are in the front rank of the learned professions. from a national value standpoint, and, therefore, when anyone of them is moved to make use of a public newspap"'er in sending a message to the world too much attention eannot, Within reason, be paid to it. Unfortunately, there are economists who have an inkling for politics, and although some of their Writings may be absolutely free from _political taint and prejudice on the face of them, they may be rendered worse"

than valucless from studied suppression of the whole truth‘ We think ‘thofla,l't]..Cl€ we are asked to “chew jover:’(’ is one of that class, for while lit sets out what may be a series of ifacts, it woefully fails in giving such ;details concerning them as to leave iuninformed people with an erroneous iidea of the subject the Professor sets out to elucidate. Coal-workers‘ in ‘Nexv Zealand cannot. be accused of ipursuing a go-slow policy as they have ?produced more coal per man during ithe last four years than they ever produced before. War has to be carried on, however, against ‘British workers, if not fairly, then iffifairly, and an article by a learned English Professor has been imported and is now going the tound of ultra-Reform newspapers. to IShOW what a lazy, skulking hound the British coalworker is compared with his «brethren of the United States. These words are not used, but the inferenc‘e is unmistakable, as but one fact is the allpervading feature of the article. that is, that the British coal-worker is being paid all he is entitled to because his yearly gettings are an annually decreasing quantity. Critics whose general knowledge includes something about coalmining will pity the ignoramuses in this country who essay to insult and raise resentment amongst coal-workers in New Zealand Comparisons without explanations suggest a sinister motive, or that illinformed persons are taking up a weapon they do not know how ‘fo handle. At American coalpits, we are told, coal is .-selling‘ at half the price: it can be bought for at British pits, and this despite Ithe fact that the American is reeciving hi.‘-51161‘ W3_%<‘SThe suggestion sought is that this is solely owing to British workers getting only half the coal per man; per annum, that the Yankee miner gets. The very statement that coal is purchasable at pits in America at «six shillings while at British pits it costs twenty-.five shillings, Ought *0 00"‘ Vince any but the most stupid people that the causes were something be" yond what either mine-owners 01' mine-workers could possibly change 01‘ remove. We say Without fear of truthful denial that there is not 110 W a mine in Britain Where CO3l C3ll be profitably sold at the pit-head at even five-shillings a ton, While W 0 just as unliesitatingly aflirm that with higher wages it can be sold at some American pits, and a profit earned, at three-shililngs and Sixpence per f0“‘Dabblers in coal discussion ='S-hollld yknow that there are no easy workings iin England to—day; éthe surface 00315 Of Wednesbury, and the ‘shallow "bTooch” and “thick" coals were Worked out commercially many years 2.180. Before the thick seams, measuring a vertical face of many yards, requiring scaffolds to cut and blast it; coal was cheaper than ever it was in American coal history_ Let us tell €ll9 Writers who are discussing a sub--30015 they obviously know nothing

about, ithat the South ~ Staffordshire coal particularly aroundfv West Bromwieh, Wedriesbury, Walsall, and neighbouring towns, coal of the very highest household quality was, within liVillß memory, carted zto householders at as low as five shillings a load, loads lwhich rarely contained less than a ton and a half. " Even a Superficial knowledge should enable any honestmindcd critic to realise that this had Vet)’ little to do with the question of wages, for piece-pikemen were then The 011V)’ of all other workers owing to their immensely bigger earnings. oDcn workings and shallow mines are a thing of the past in Britain, while in America, as in some places in New Zealand, a drive is made into high Colmtl“Y, and the coal is taken as the dl‘iV€ 10I18t-hens and the workingface is extended, Would the critics in this hDominion expect miners who go deep down into the earth fir-st, and then travel for miles under the Atlantic Ocean in search of coal, be expected to send out as much coal per man, and at as low a price per ton as {those in a shallow working with a face of coal many yards in thickness? It‘ the WoTkinEtoll and Whitehaven mines are still working we state most cmphatically, it is a marvel approaching lithe miraculous, that the coal under the locean can be mined at a price to pay the cost of its getting, and yet people for some reason best known to tllcmselves seek to throw odium on the British worker while extolling Americans. We say that American and British coal-getting ‘(bears ‘no com--parison, only that it is coal that‘ is being mined, and that men are mining it. Why should New Zealand newspaper writers go on fouling their own nests in favour of ‘Americans or anybody else‘! We know they have no, conception of the nature of the work, the British coal-miner is engaged in.‘ When we say that men go thousands, of feet down into the bowels of the} earth, and then itravel long distances,l risking faults in astratafication,l faulty timbering, fire-damp, gas and water, New Zealand carities of the!‘ British miner may begin ‘[o conceive the idea that it is unrca‘sonnble| to expect. him to send as much coal to the pit mouth, as can easily‘ come from a level," or an open Working. At the Dukinfield pits the miner first‘ steps on to the ‘fcage” to go down some hundreds of feet; he leaves the “cage” and travels down an incline fori a long distance, he then enters another “cage’__.’ and makes anofher long -, journey down towards the centre" of!‘ gravitation, but what we desire to impress is that all the Dukint'ield coal 5 has to come out by the same way that l miners go in. We liave in school days, l been down nearly‘ every mine in} Staffordshire from Sandwell Park, l)c~l tween I-landsworth and W’ost Brom~ wich, near Birmingham, to Dukinfieldl in North Staffordshire, and nothing] can be. more indeliuby fixed upon Our] minds than the marvellous pl'OVisio:l built up for taking from the earth equally marvellous seams of coal, We have seen men working in mines wliefiicp the coal is many yards in thickness, and we have followed thtlm, after going deeper down, into their veritable burrows, getting a seam of coal that‘ only average three feet in thicknessImagine men crawlingafteraseam of! coal, where the only means Of straightening themselves is to lie flat on the ground, and then expectingl them to send to the surface as much coal per man as New Zcalanclcrs or‘ Americans can, from their shalloxvi level, or open workings. It is not dis- - creet to accept the economist at his} face value, he needs intelligently digging into_ Although he may be :1 I Professor of Economics, he maY 3150 be] a noodle from a pracricil intlustzrial point. of view. ‘We have, as I'C<llloSt'3d; I “chewed” our correspondent’_\~ cuttings over and we trust we have disclosed‘ to him how .in(llSCl‘oCt it is to publicly discuss matters which one knows 110-‘ thing whatever about.