COAL AND WHEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 October 1921, Page 5

COAL AND WHEAT.

PRODUCTION OF THE DOMINION... SOME STRIKING FIGURES. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Some striking comparisons between the production of coal and wheat in New Zealand were given by Mr. H. ®. Holland (Leader of the Labor Party) in the House to-day. Mr. Holland discussed the coal position in the Dominion, censuring the Government for importing large quantities of foreign coal when there was an abundance of coal in the Dominion; He wanted to know if amongst our imported coal there was any German reparation coal. Mr. Massey said there was none. Proceeding, Mr. Holland demanded to know what was the .price of the imported coal. He understood the cost of Welsh coal was £4 10s per ton. Mr. Massey: That is not so. Mr. Holland: “If that is not so then we ought to be told what this coal did cost.” He had asked for this information and it had been denied him by the Government.

Mr. Holland went on to say that during the forty-one years covered by the Ytar Book figures the New Zeeland output varied from. 443 tons per man underground in 1878 to 750 tons in 1016. It has constantly fluctuated. In 1888 it was 481 tons per man underground, in tue following year (1889) it fell to 468 tons, by 1898 it had risen to 627 tons, in the following year it fell to 609 tons, in 1908 it was 641 tons, and 633 in 1909; in 1918 it was 703 tons and 648 in 1919. Taking the period expressed in decades of years there had been a steady increase in the yearly output per man underground. For example: 1878, 443 tons per man; 1888, 481 tons; 1898, 627 tons; 1908, 641 tons; 1918, 703 tons. WORK IN WAR YEARS. Both the Minister of Agriculture and the member for Kaiapoi sought to make it appear that during the war the miners held New Zealand up in the matter of the coal supply, but an answer to that slander was given in the figures officially furnished by the Government itself. Our principal war years were all record years of coal production per man. Out of the 41 years of recorded output there had only been five years in Which the output per man underground had either reached or exceeded 700 tons. One of those five years was 1911, when the output was 706 tons per man— a. Dominion record up to that time. The other four years in which the output was above 700 tons per men were 1915, 1916, 1917 and 3918, and the figures for these years ! were 711, 750, 715 and 703 tons respectively. The 1916 output was not only a Dominion record per man but it was also a world record. The 1917 output was the Dominion’s second best record, that of 1915 the third best, and that of' 1918 the fifth best. The 1911 record was i the fourth best. Comparing the five years period immediately prior to the war (1910-14) with the five war-years• (1915-19) it would be found that while the output was 650 tons per man underground for the pre-war period it was over 705 tons -per man for the war period. What, he asked., have the enemies of labor to say to these figures? He suggested that the Minister of Agriculture and the member for Kaiapoi should compare the figures affecting j wheat production with the coal returns ! and they would see that between the i first year of the war (1914-15) and the ' year 1919-20 there was a decrease of ■ 89,989 acres in the Wheat area under cul- [ tivation and a decrease of 2,084,402 bushels in the- aggregate output. As between 1917-18 (the year whose coal figures the member for Kaiapoi uses) and 1919-20 there is a Wheat area decrease of 141,367 acres and a decrease of 2,247,597 bushels in the aggregate ;• output. DECREASE IN WHEAT. Taking the wartime record year for; acreage under cultivation (1915-16) we i find there is as between it and 1919-20. an area decrease of 189,596 acres and a decrease in output of 2,549,426 bushels. The output of wheat per acre varies just as the output of coal per man varied, and for reasons easily understandable. While 1915-16 was me record year of the last decade for the aggregate output it gave the lowest yield per acre, 21.59 bushels. The year 1919-20, with the lowest acreage and the lowest aggregate yield, gave the second highest yield per acre for the period named, 32.66 bushels. Had there been the same acreage under cultivation in 1919-20 as in 1915-16, and had the yield per acre been the same throughout, we should not have needed to import wheat at all and our output for last year would have been over 10,750,000 bushels. As it was wo imported 14)05,000 bushels in 1920, while during the seven years 1914-20 our imports exceeded 6,027,600 bushels. During one of the war years certain Canterbury wheat growers met and deliberately carried a resolution to the effect that nothing less than 7s a bushel would suit them, and they also declared that unless the price was increased they would not grow wheat.