SOME UGLY FACTS.

Taihape Daily Times, 2 August 1919, Page 5

SOME UGLY FACTS.

‘Commenting on the coal crisis in Britain the Clhristehurch ‘ ‘Sun ’ ’ says: It is time to ilooknl squarely at a few ugd'y facts in B_l_‘i§fa.ill,‘a-11d to ask our~ selves vyhich isV't‘lie'nlol'e "remarkable ——tl_le violellt.and.l,low‘ stupid unreason ableness of. the ’_ ,Ill,iiiOl:'é, or the iride‘cent _ ‘slnugness‘_ of some' "on the ‘ other side] There is the “Golden Mile” scandal, for instance, 'at Monmouthshire. VVhen the railway was first being carried t‘-o Nfifiioif. it was thought advisable, in order to avoid a difricult circuit and almost prosibitixie engineering obstacles, to make a detour through a corner of Trcdegear Park. The price demanded (and granted) was that Lord Tredegar his heirs for ever should receive a royalty ‘on every ton of goods carried over that portion of the line. Imagine what that means with Newport so big as it is to—day——and coal so dear and necessary. 01'. take the case of Lord Derby even, a. sturdy patriot as everyone knows, but the giqlkled owner also -of halflthe land in Liverpool. VVitll Earl Sefiton, we think it is, one of Whose ancestors bought the Manor for two or three thousand pounds from the financially desperate Charles 1., -0111‘ ex—Minister of State for War'holcls one of the biggest ports in the world in the hollow of his hand. Then the Earl of Durham, a. very rliifieult and acrimonious witness examined. recently by the Mines Valuation Commission, Accorjdirigto an oxchgmge, whose reports are: usu-a4l'-ly accurate, he draws royalties from nearly all the coalfields in his eoniitry. But perhaps the heaviest socifl mfilstone of all is the man whose zmcostors disposed of their surface acres generations ago, but loS€‘l'Vod for all time, and were permitted to 1-0301-V(}_ the possibilities hidden. in the bowels of the earth. Thus the Earl of "Dudley has been able to undermine SW9;-31 large and prosperous vi]lages—llere they would be substantial town_q——anfd to repudiate responsibility for damage caused by Soil subsidence. EAVCII ‘the Marquis of Bufg, who owns half the site of Cardiff, with the docks and the railways leading in alld.out',k is not so powerful an argument for riiitiorialisation as the coal «baron who‘ can bring your house down with impunity. If Lgloyd George can move those‘ mountains it will be. the biggest social change" since Henry VIII. ’s disreputable raid on the‘mona..=:teries.