LOSS OF £12,000,000.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1920, Page 10 (Supplement)

LOSS OF £12,000,000.

THE BROKEN HILL TROUBLE, Sydney, October. It is now no less than seventeen • months since the work of production ceased at Broken Hill. This is tho longest strike in the history of Australia, and probably in the history of industry generally. If the mines and the subsidiary works had been going under normal conditions during that period, there would have been produced about 200,000 tons of market lead, 500,000 tons of zinc concentrate, and 11,500,000 ounces of silver, worth in all £12,000,000. This huge sum has been lost to Australia. Not only have the shareholders in most of the Broken Hill companies—many of whom were absolutely dependent on the moneys thus obtained—drawn no dividends since early in 1919, but an even more serious loss has been suffered by the workers of Broken Hill and of the subsidiary places, like Port Pirie, in South Australia. Most of the better class of men have long since drifted away into other industries; but there are a sufficient number of the other type who have remained - in Broken Hill in idleness to represent ft heavy burden upon the sympathetic unions, which have supported them for nearly IA-. years. > All this time contributions'have been flowing to Broken Hill from certain Labour organisations, mostly the miners' unions of New South Wales. The men appear to be quite happy in their idleness; but their women and children, according to frequent reports, havo been suffering great privations. A tribunal, the decision of which both sides have agreed to accept, has now just about completed its labour; and there is a general belief that operations will be fully resumed next month. Thus will end the longest and certainly the most costly strike that Australia has known.