SOCIAL CHAOS AND DREADFUL NIGHT. The Position of Melbourne in Case of a Strike.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 293, 25 August 1888, Page 3

SOCIAL CHAOS AND DREADFUL NIGHT. The Position of Melbourne in Case of a Strike.

The Melbourne " Daily Telegraph " says : — " Ib is a doleful effort of the imagination to picture Melbourne firolessandunlighted, the trains moveless on the lines, the trams art ested in the streets, the great factories frozen into idleness and every other kitchen fiie quenched. And yet the gruesome fact follows with uncomfortable closeness on the heels of that doleful fancy. The failure of our coal supply would bring upon the city much of the horroi's ot a siege. (Joal is for us the great source of light, of heat, and of manufacturing power If she supply of coal were to even temporarily fail ituould bring about an almost complete dislocation of society, with an amount of social discomfort and commercial mischief hideous to contemplate. The calamity would be so hideous that we protect our imagination from the pang of anticipating it by cultivate q a iobu-b incredulity as to its ever happening. And yet the hard facts are that Melbourne contains little moro than a week's supply of coal, and bh id there is real and most imminent risk ot our being cut oft from the base of our supply altogether by a complication of jtri!»'e&. Labour if- federated through ail its forms so closely that a coniiict in one biade runs, hkeanelecbricshockalonga cable th tough a hundred associated trades, and half round the continent. So the shipping trouble in Sydnoy includes in the sweep ot its complications the collierie- at Newcastle. Mo\eover, the coal-minera aie on the verge, apparently, of an exaspeiated struggle wir.li the Coal - owners' As&ooiation. A stiike is moie than probable, and mut>b a.most instantly and absolutely arrest our coal supply. A strike must be very expeditious, indeed, if ie gets itself healed within a week ; and yet. a single week's failuie of our coal supply would plunge us into a social chaos and turn Melbourne into a veritable City of Dreadful Night, with unlit houses aivi cold hoarthstones. " Mo doubt if our coal supply failed we should make an energetic fight for social existence : and the red gums of the Mu nay and the bluo gums, of the Oipp&Und range's would begin to move on Melbourne like Bini urn Wood on Dun-inane. The Railway Department, in the inteiests ot its locomotives, has already called for tenders for 30,000 tons of wood in short lengths, and we might no doubt run our locomotives with wood for fuel. Bub it would take weeks to give the department its 30,000 tons of firewood, and no outlay could extract gas from timber, and no supply and distribution of firewood sujh'cient to keep the kitchen fires ot the metropolis burning could be readily improvised. It is a genuine national mi^for buuethatforthesupplyofa prime necessity of civilised existence, our fuel, we have to depend upon foreign mints. But it is an aggravation of chat calamity that our supply should be at the mercy ot a labour dispute. If the miners of Newcastle are greedy and demand unreasonable things; or if the coalowners ot Newcastle are sefilsh and refuse fair terms; or it owners and mineis together are merely stupid and keep their quarrel going for a few unnecessary days, this city will be plunged into mer6 chaos and night. It is both a humiliation and a peril to us thab our commerce, our domestic comfort, the order of our sbx-eets and the very motive force of our railways and factories should thus be capable of being destroyed by the obstinacy of wrangling i rades a thousand miles off. We may comfort ourselves with the cheerful relief that no such actual calamity as that we have described will qvertake us. Nevertheless, ib is piain that a great pity like Melbourne shpujd not, in a matter sp serious as the supply of its fuel, live on a h&nd to-mouth policy, Our re> serve of coal is rauchtoolow, and.asamabter of fact, we live continually quite too near the danger-line of a coal famine. A company charged with such vast social functions as the Gas Company is not showing reasonable foresight, or a reasonable care for the public convenience, when ib tails to keep a reserve of coal. With only a week's stock of coal in hand all the gas jets ot Melbourne in street and house are always at the mei-py of a gale of wind, which might for a few days interrupt navigation, Still more blamable is the want of foresight displayed by the Railway Department. It was a wise custom up to a re*cent period for the department to maintain a large reserve of ooal, so as to be independent of trade disturbances. Amongst the other improvements which the country owes to Mr: Allison Smith, we believo, is the abolition of the coal reserve ; and consequently the strike in the collieries would in one short week bring about a partial dislocation, at least, of our whole railway system. It is a plain dictate of common cense which, we hope, will be acted upon, to maintain a substantial coal reserve, Meanwhile those who tiolft themselves -reßponsible for the supply of light and fuel to the city will be wise to take the most energetic measures for averting what would be a social calamity of the first magnitude." *