SERIOUS MINING DISPUTE

Wairarapa Age, 9 February 1927, Page 5

SERIOUS MINING DISPUTE

IN NEW SOUTH WALES. ALL MINES MAY CLOSE DOWN. POSITION VERY GRAVE. SYDNEY, February 8. A conference of coal miners’ representatives and owners’ representatives at Newcastle, called to discuss the miners’ claims for higher wages and better conditions of work, ended abruptly to-day, when the owners’ representatives refused the miners’ claims stating that the bad conditions in the coal industry at present did not warrant them. A miners’ delegate board has been summoned for to-morrow, when the question of whether the miners will cease work or not will be considered. It is stated that the position is grave. It is anticipated that the meeting of the Miners’ Delegate Board will result in the closing of all the mines, throwing idle thirty thousand miners and other colliery workers. Already „ the coal trade is slack and half the mines arc idle for want, of trade. New’eastle is now entirely dependent on the interstate and New Zealand trade, and the owners state that the latter will be further reduced, as New' Zealand is devising schemes by which New Zealand coal can be put to more general use in place of Newcastle coal.—(P.A.)