BRITISH COAL BILL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 April 1938, Page 7

BRITISH COAL BILL

PASSED BY THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

ACCEPTED DOUBTFULLY BY LABOUR PARTY.

(British Official Wireless) RUGBY, April 5.

The Coal Bill, which is one of the Government’s main legislative measures of the session, was moved for the third reading in the House of Commons by the Secretary for Mines, Mr H. F. C. Crookshank, before going to the House of Lords later in the week. The measure deals comprehensively with the interests of the preesnt owners of coal, the colliery owners, the workers, and the community at large. Mr Crookshank said this was the fifteenth day of the Bill and no motion was down for its rejection. He took it that even if the Bill had not the goodwill of all members of the House, it at any rate had their benevolent neutrality. While the Bill was before Parliament, the registration of properties was proceeding. Up to the present 17,105 applications had been received. Mr E. Shinwell (Labour) said the Opposition would not vote against the third reading of the Bill. They accepted anything conducive to the interests of the mine workers, and for that reason they accepted the Bill with all its defects and practical difficulties in the hope that the Government and the commission and the coal owners would try to make the best of it in the interests of the workers and the nation as a whole.

The third reading was passed without a division.