CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 April 1921, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE PRICE OF COAL.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Your footnote to my letter In last Friday’s Daily News was somewhat beside the point. In the first place may I point out that I did not invite you to institute any comparison between the State mines and those in private hands. That can be deferred till later. Again, you state that the State mine is furnished with public money for capital and does not have to earn dividends, but may I suggest that it is debited with interest on capital amounting to some thousands of pounds, and that this is equivalent, or ought to be equivalent, to dividends. As a matter of fact my object was, and is, to get you to administer your own prescription. Some little time ago you verj’ properly stated that the only way to get a clear idea of the position would be to have figures showing the charges at every stage from the'mine to the consumer. I have given you the figures at both ends, viz., £91,000. at the mine and £425,000 to the consumer, and I have invited you to fill in the figures between those extremes and to say whether or not you think all the charges justified. I take it that you really do desire, in the interests of the public, to get at the truth of the matter, and I suggest that it might be worth while to take the method you previously proposed and as to which I now present the opposing extremes, rather than to persist in the view that everything one side of, the disputants say is “gospel,” while all that the other side puts forward is "preposterous.” ■—l am, etc., F.D.

- (Our correspondent may give what figures he desires, but the furnishing of Information “showing tho charges at every stage from the mine to the consumer,” can only be undertaken, as we have before shown, by an impartial tribunal, the setting up of which we have advocated. When that Information is available we will be in a position to say whether or not any of the charges are justifiable. But we need not wait for such- information to express the opinion that what the miners are now asking is preposterous.”—Ed.)