MINING DISPUTE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 September 1938, Page 8

MINING DISPUTE

NEW ZEALAND NOT LIKELY TO BE AFFECTED LITTLE AUSTRALIAN COAL NOW IMPORTED. STEADY DECREASE FOR YEARS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. The opinion that should there be a general strike of coalminers in Australia the trouble would not spread to New Zealand before the elections was expressed by Colonel W. D. Holgate, former president of the New Zealand Coal Mineowners’ Association and a director of the Taupiri coal mines. He said the most serious effect in the Dominion would not be directly caused by the strike but by the terms of settlement which followed. He did not anticipate any shortage of coal nor a rise in price due to the cessation of production in Australia. New Zealand imported very little coal now. There had been a steady decrease as the local output had increased and gas' companies had turned more to the use of Westport coal for gasmaking purposes. The latest return showed that the import of gas coal from Newcastle in 1937 was 116,499 tons. Although this was an increase of 5000 tons on the previous year there had been a steady decline from 1925, when New Zealand used 572,573 tons of Australian coal. The tendency was for a continued decline. Provided the strike did not spread it would have little or no effect on the Dominion. Assurances had been given in response to inquiries by unions in New Zealand that coal would not be exported to Australia.