TURN FOR THE WORSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 October 1938, Page 7

TURN FOR THE WORSE

AUSTRALIAN COAL STRIKE DEADLOCK IN NEGOTIATIONS. MORE SERVICES CURTAILED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. SYDNEY, October 5. The coal strike took a turn for the worse today, when a deadlock was reached in the negotiations for a settlement, and a complete collapse of the efforts of the Minister of Labour, Mi Mair, is now feared by the miners' officials. Mr Mair had a long conference with the miners’ officials, and tried to urge them to refer their grievances to the Arbitration Court and to induce the men to return to work, a course on which the mine-owners insist. This course was unacceptable to the miners’ representatives, who, late this afternoon, held a meeting to decide their future plans. Meanwhile the shortage of coal is necessitating a further curtailment of railway services in New South Wales, and hundreds of dismissals of railway employees and workers in brickworks, quarries, and kindred industries have taken place. RAILWAY LINE BLOWN UP. BUILDINGS RATTLED IN TOWN TWO MILES AWAY. (Received This Day, 11.20 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Four loud explosions occurred late last night in the vicinity of the Rothbury Estate, where small mines are being worked with free labour. The explosions were of such force that they rattled buildings in the town of Branxton, two miles away, and were heard eight miles off at Cessnock. Early this morning the police discovered that the railway line leading from the Rothbury Colliery had been blown up in four places.