fiREAT DEMAND FOR NEW ZEALAND COAL. THE STEIKB EXPECTED TO EXTEND TO NEW ZEALAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 294, 29 August 1888, Page 5

fiREAT DEMAND FOR NEW ZEALAND COAL. THE STEIKB EXPECTED TO EXTEND TO NEW ZEALAND.

The immediate e/fecfc of the miners' strike at Newcastle, so far as New Zealand is concerned, is a great demand for coal, both from Australia and from consumers close at hand. It is expected that there will be a greatly increased demand for Auckland coal, and that all steamers running between this port and Australia will draw full supplies from here instead of about half the requiied quantity as hitherto. Messrs Stone Bros, have received an order for 500 tons Auckland coal from Melbourne, and they do not expect that this shipment can be made, for the reasons already stated. The same firm have been instructed that the steamer Balmoral Castle, due to arrive at Sydney from London on the 12th September, and Auckland on the 22nd, will coal at this port. She will require between 500 and 1000 tons coal. There is a general increase in the demand for local coal, and quotations have a decided upward tendency. A private telegram received from the South to-day indicates that there aie evidences of the miners btrike being extended to New Zealand, chiefly through the medium of the Federated Seamen's Union, but so iar we have no confirmation of such a report. The manager of the Auckland branch ot the Seamen's Union saysa he has had no information on the bubject, his iiibbiucfcionfe simply being that the Jubilee Company is to continue operations as hitherto. A meeting of wharf labourers i& convened for this evening with a view of re-torming the Lumpers' Union, which succumbed to press of circumstances about two yeai's ago. Tne lumpers were woisted iv a strike, and times being bad, they broke up the Union and divided the fundb. The possibility of complications arising out of the miners' strike, and the anticipated strike of seamen, have awakened the lumpers to the impoitance ot their position, and hence the present movement for re-organisation.