MINING TROUBLE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3396, 29 January 1920, Page 5

MINING TROUBLE.

‘ QUESTION OF ANOTHER CONFERENCE_ ' MR MASSEY AN~XIO'US- TO HELP. WELLINGTON, Jan. 28. A Westport deputation to-day asked the Government to open up a new. mine in the Inangahua Valley and build there a good mining village and build a railway to make the mine ac-+ cessible, also to take steps to open up coal measures at Charleston. It’ was urged on Mr Massey that the Government must see that the miners are better paid and provided With‘ better houses if they are to be induced to stay on the coalfields. If the’ present state of affairs continued for two years more, there would be no" men left on the fields, and the only; ‘alternative would be to work coal with‘ foreign labour. * l Replying, Mr Massey said he believed the conditions in mines, Wheq }ther State or private-owned, should [be as good as it was possible to make‘. :them_, 'b.ut he said, “We find a pistol [is presented at our heads, and we are‘ {told if we don't do so and so, -there’ [will be no coal.” I believe a round table conference is the bestimethod of settling these troubles. Mr Holland, M.P.: So do the miners. ‘ ‘ Mr Massey: Then why don’.t the miners come along to the conferencei’: Mr Holland: They are prepared to’ come, noW_ ; Mr Massey said if the miners were? willing to meet the mine owners, the Union being represented in proper. person by miners, he was prepared to‘ bring about a conference and assist to make it Successful, but ‘if the n:in< ers were not prepared to do this, it would be useless for him "to askthe owners to come to a conference. In the miners would only drop the idea; of ‘being represented by an outsldel body—the Alliance of Labour-he thought the conference could be an ranged and the dilfic-"'fy settled.