A STRIKE THREATENED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9151, 25 July 1908, Page 5

A STRIKE THREATENED.

THE COAL MINING DISPUTE.

BY TELEGRAPH —PRE3S ASSOCIATION. WELLINGTON, July 24. A strike of some dimensions it is stated is threatened in connection with the coal mining industry. The Minister of Labour (the Hon. J. A. Millar) has been informed by telegraph from the officers of the Otago Miners' Union, that unless a settlement of the existing dispute between the miners and the coalmineowners is arrived at by Monday next, nine thousand men will go cut on strike. This decision is the outcome of negotiations that have been in progress for some time past. The miners went before the Arbitration Court in Dunedin, and the Court instructed them to go back to the employers and try to arrange a conference with a view to a settlement. The} state that they had previously endeavoured to settle their differences by thi3 means without success The miners now fear that they will not be able eit'ier ti bring about an agreement or conclude the conference before the end of tne present sittings of the Court, and they have therefore decided, as already stated, that they will strike unless by Monday a settlement has been arranged, or they have been granted permission to go before the Court. NAPIER, July 24. In connection with the rumour of a threatened coal strike the manager of the Napier Gas Company informed a reporter that a feeling of unrest had been recognised by the Company for some time, and in consequence large stocks had been laid in.