COAL FROM NEWCASTLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 May 1921, Page 2

COAL FROM NEWCASTLE.

RAILWAYS FIRST ON LIST. FIW THOUSAND TONS WEEKLY. Sydney, May 17. Difficulties in the way of Ailing New Zealand’s ooal orders have been causing concern in. Newcastle lately. The trouble appears now to have ended. There has been discontent among the Newcastle shipping agents interested in the New Zealand coal trade because of long delays in securing permits for vessels to load. Several steamers, notably the Garbeta, Trewellard, and Broxton, have been tied up for a considerable period, waiting for coal. These vessels are under charter, and the delay has involved everyone concerned in heavy expense.

It is pointed out by .the Newcastle shipping managers that the embargo placed some time ago on the shipment of coal was designed to . ensure adequate supplies for Australian requirements, and then preference was to be given to New Zealand. This embargo .already has had a serious effect on oversea trade, and several companies have stopped chartering tonnage for overseas owing to the uncertainty of securing coal within a reasonable tinje. Many of the Newcastle companies have been trading for years with well-known oversea firms, particularly in the East, and the embargo is severing business connections slowly established over long periods. It is now announced that the original terms of the embargo have been modified, so far as New Zealand is concerned, so (hat 5000 tons of coal are guaranteed each week for the New Zealand Railway Department. After the requirements of the States have been met, New Zealand orders generally will have preference over all other oversea orders. After New Zealand wants are met, orders from other oversea countries may be filled. A statement has been made on behalf of the mineowners that the loss of coal output at Maitland and Newcastle during the first four months of this year owing to sectional strikes was 308,000 tons, as against 397,965 tons lost owing to similar causes during the whole of last year. It was further pointed out that if these sectional strikes maintained their present virulence the loss by the end of the year would be 1,317,905 tons. No less than 115,000 tons of coal were lost to production through sectional strikes in April.

The statement concluded: “There is ample work for the miners, and double the numbers of miners now employed, if the Miners’ Federation will only permit the men to work two shifts, or even one shift without interruption. The manner in which the miners are ruining the coal industry certainly does not warrant the public placing any faith in their proposal to administer national finance.”