PRICE OF COAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3069, 14 December 1908, Page 5

PRICE OF COAL.

CABLE NEWS.

Ucited Press Association By illeetric Telegraph Copyright.

MINERS' EIGHT-HOUR BILL.

STRONG OPPOSITION IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. ATTITUDE OF LABOUR M.P's. LONDON, December 12. Strenuous opposition to the Miners' Eight Hours Bill is being developed in the House of Commons and outside owing to fears that a reduction in the output would greatly increase the cost of coal to consumers. Labour members of the House of Commons, nominally on the ground of saviig time, will not participate in the debate, a:id will ignore the searching questions Mr tfalfour, Leader of the Opposition, intends to put. The Durham and Northumberland miners' repressntativas, though previously opposed to the Bill, are now acquiescent, it is supposed, at th 3 desire of the Miners' Federation.

The Bill passed its second reading in July, after a motion for its rejection had been lost by 390 votes to 120. Replying to the Opposition, Mr Herbert Samuel (Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Home Office) stated that a strike would follow rejection of the Bill. Mr Bonar Law (Conservative member for Dulwich Division oi Camberwell) declared that the passing ot the Bill would be likely to cause a strike, as Durham and Northumberland miners, who now worked six and a-half hours, would have to work longer. The Right Hon. Winston Churchill (President of the Board of Trade) insisted thar; the Bill would benefit 900.000 colliers in respect to health, industrial efficiency, education and culture, by giving them time to think, read and cultivate their gardens.