Coal Crisis in Russia.

Russia, Coal Crisis in—Report Presented, Mar.

Russia, Coal Crisis in—Report, Mar.

and is it possible to say anything in regard to the Coal Crisis?

I regret that I am unable to make any statment with regard to proceedings in connection with the Coal Crisis.

Mr. BONAR LAW: May I ask the Prime Minister if he has any information on the Coal Crisis to give to the House?

Sir A. MARKHAM: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he does not intend to give the House facilities before next Thursday at the earliest for the discussion of the Coal Crisis?

Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: May I ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary if he is able to state whether, in the unhappy event of the Prime Minister being unable on Thursday to make a more definite and satisfactory statement in the matter of the Coal Crisis, the Government will then be able to give the House an opportunity of discussing the question?

It is perfectly true that you have never had a Great Coal Crisis in this country.

Mr. BONAR LAW: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary whether he has any statement to make to the House in regard to business, and also whether he is going now to make a statement to the House as to the condition of the Coal Crisis and the reason for taking the Bill to-day, if he did not think it right to take it yesterday, or does he prefer to leave it to the statement to be made by the Prime Minister at the beginning of the discussion on the Coal Mines Bill?

I believe not only that the case is arguable, but that it is a very just case, and I say to the Prime Minister, in view of the Great Coal Crisis that we are faced with, that this is the time of all times to deal in a root manner with root problems.

We were told during the Great Coal Crisis that we were to pay an increase of 6s.

I was not in this country when the Great Coal Crisis arose.

Effect of Coal Crisis [141], 8.

Exchange Rates—Effect of Coal Crisis [141], 8.

We are in the middle of a Great Coal Crisis.

I think that what ho said with regard to the coal industry, the Coal Crisis and the Coal Commission was very true.

I have been listening to his speeches in recent days with considerable amazement, and I have been watching his attitude ever since the Coal Crisis arose last year.

It deserves notice, however, that at last the Conservative party have made some constructive suggestion for the solution of the Coal Crisis.

We all know that last year—I am speaking particularly of the herring industry on the East coast of Scotland, because fortunately there was some very good business done by the herring fishing on the West coast of Scotland—the condition in which they are was undoubtedly rendered worse by the Coal Crisis, which increased the expenses of working the boats to such an extent that it practically did away with 90 per cent.

We were faced with a Coal Crisis, we were faced with the difficulty that neither owners nor miners would come to terms, and we introduced a Minimum Wage Bill.

I would like to read a statement from a letter which the Prime Minister sent to a candidate in Manchester, Alderman Henderson, during a by-election in June of this year: "So far from doing anything to increase the efficiency of industry, our predecessors by their hurried return to the Gold Standard augmented the difficulties of the export trade and directly produced the Coal Crisis of 1925–26.

He said that the real cause of the Coal Crisis was the depression in German industry and that it was quite understandable that there should be a desire to preserve the limited home market by excluding British coal imports.

and whether they offered or released any of this Reserve to Glasgow citizens during the Recent Coal Crisis?

asked the Secretary for Mines whether he can state the amount of coal held in reserve by the Glasgow Corporation gas and electricity departments, respectively; and whether they offered or released any of this Reserve to Glasgow citizens during the Recent Coal Crisis?

Mr. W. Brown asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the failure to resolve the Coal Crisis within the limits set by the private ownership of mines in Britain, the Government will now reconsider its position and make preparations for the nationalisation of the mines?

I would only say before resuming my seat that this is an illustration of the difficulty one has in bringing home to the Ministry of Fuel and Power the extremely grave position in which this country has now been for the last three years, and there is not the slightest indication that the Minister of Fuel and Power has yet taken the steps which will be necessary to bring to an end this humiliating position where the greatest coal exporting country in the world before the war is moving from month to month from one Coal Crisis to another.

In 1941, the Government knew, and announced, that there was a Coal Crisis; and we had a Minister of Mines whom I am quite certain would have done everything in his power to solve that crisis.

Coal is produced at collieries, and unless those collieries are reorganised, and placed on a proper foundation, the Coal Crisis will go from bad to worse.

He went on:I want to tell you that there is not going to be a Crisis in Coal, if by a crisis you mean that industrial organisation is going to be seriously dislocated.

In my own unorthodox, but considered and calculated opinion, the real cause of the Present Coal Crisis is that wages and earnings in the industry are too low in relation to earnings in other industries.

Mr. Osborne asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give an assurance that there is no danger of clothing supplies being insufficient to meet the present coupons owing to the stoppage of production through the Coal Crisis.

I want to tell you there is not going to be a Crisis in Coal, if, by crisis, you mean that industrial organisation is going to be seriously dislocated and that hundreds of factories are going to be closed down.

More than that, hon. Gentlemen should remember that there is still a Coal Crisis on the Continent.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give an assurance that there is no danger of clothing supplies being insufficient to meet the present coupons owing to the stoppage of production through the Coal Crisis.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether any changes, in view of the Coal Crisis, have been made in the allocation of industrial production as between goods for export and the home market; and what effect it can be estimated that such cuts as have been necessary will have on long-term contracts abroad.

All of us feel now the terrible catastrophe of the Coal Crisis upon us.

It took Dunkirk to tell this nation that there was a war on, and I believe it has taken This Coal Crisis to tell this nation that it is, in economic terms, fighting for its life.

This proposal, comes right in the midst of a Coal Crisis, when we have cold grates, and appeals to go carefully.

Mr. Osborne asked the Prime Minister, if he will make a special appeal to both workers and employers to suspend all restrictive practices and work longer hours for six months after the Coal Crisis ends, in order to make up the lost production.

asked the Prime Minister, if he will make a special appeal to both workers and employers to suspend all restrictive practices and work longer hours for six months after the Coal Crisis ends, in order to make up the lost production.

Nobody can deny that during the decisive period of the Coal Crisis, Communists, along with the general Labour movement played a very big part in bringing about a solution of the crisis.

One is that he should examine the coal situation, not only in this country but in other countries which have recently passed through a Coal Crisis, if not the same, at any rate rather parallel to the one we are now considering.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the estimated net loss of national income due to the Coal Crisis and electricity cuts to industry.

We have already unhappily tasted a Coal Crisis.

(2) in view of the extra drain on our dollar resources arising from the Coal Crisis, what steps he is now taking to 649 appeal to the country to economise, especially on tobacco, and to get all the resources of the Government behind the appeal.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if, in view of the scarcity of U.S. dollars and the need to spend our limited resources on food, raw materials and machinery, he will now prohibit altogether the importation of U.S. tobacco and substitute supplies from non-dollar sources; (2) in view of the extra drain on our dollar resources arising from the Coal Crisis, what steps he is now taking to appeal to the country to economise, especially on tobacco, and to get all the resources of the Government behind the appeal.

There is a Committee reviewing the situation with regard to the Coal Crisis.

I would say, as the Minister of Fuel and Power stated in the recent Coal Debate, that the Coal Crisis from which we are emerging is a blessing in disguise, and I think every one of us will have learned the lesson.

This is the immediate and overdue remedy for the Coal Crisis:The wise man would have prepared, but the Cabinet preferred to let Mr. Shinwell, their Minister of Fuel, gamble on warm weather, rather than offend their masters, the trades unions, by allowing 50,000 willing Poles to go underground to produce coal who could have been placed strategically throughout the country.

Mr. Osborne asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the estimated net loss of national income due to the Coal Crisis and electricity cuts to industry.

The Coal Crisis was bad enough, but the Government themselves admit that the effects of the coal crisis will not be anything like as bad as the probable effects of a dollar crisis before we are very much older.

I am confident that with the five-day week and the incentives we are now offering in that industry, the Coal Crisis will be solved and we shall be able to fight the major economic battle.

The Opposition can give no such undertaking, because they did not make the Crisis in Coal.

Since the White Paper was presented to Parliament, we have had a Coal Crisis and President Truman's speech, and we have had three days' Debate on economic affairs, all of which have sharply focussed the attention of the country on the necessity of making the best use possible of every available man, whether in the Forces or in industry.

Nothing lost us more prestige abroad in America, or even in France or Russia, than the fact of the Coal Crisis.

Are the Government informing us that last spring they were totally unaware of the Impending Coal Crisis?

and, in view of the Coal Crisis, if he will stop this waste of fuel and insist that the National Coal Board staff travel in the ordinary train.

asked the Minister of Transport if he is aware that two special trains for National Coal Board staff are running daily between Ebbw Vale and Six Bells; and, in view of the Coal Crisis, if he will stop this waste of fuel and insist that the National Coal Board staff travel in the ordinary train.

At the time of the peak of the Coal Crisis some five or six weeks ago, the miners in the Cannock Chase area wanted to work on Sundays to help produce more coal.

I made it my business, as I did during the Coal Crisis, to try to find out the reaction of my constituents.

Nor could he say, with any precision, what the effect would be on the book publishing trade of the Coal Crisis last February.

Manufacturers arc now making good the production lost during the Coal Crisis and I hope that with a steady improvement in deliveries the position in the shops will gradually be eased.

It would be interesting to know Are we to take it that it was not until the end of April that the Secretary of State realised that there had been a Coal Crisis, and bad weather?

Mr. Prescott asked the President of the Board of Trade what is estimated to have been the loss of production of cotton and rayon cloth and cotton and rayon yarn due to the Coal Crisis.

With the exception of the Austin Motor Works, the textile industry was the first to be hit by the Coal Crisis, and that crisis has left its mark on the minds of textile operatives who were then not back in the industry, but who might have gone back but for what happened last winter.

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that a Coal Crisis is feared more in Lancashire than is the crisis referred to by the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Shackleton)?

For instance, during the so-called Coal Crisis last winter, the coal saving was in the region of 2,000,000 tons, but it is stated that the damage to British exports will be in the region of £200 million sterling.

Then he said something about Another Coal Crisis, and that in the winter we might be moving into a difficult period, and somebody might start a law action in some way or another and that somehow, this Amendment would make it more difficult for the Government to deal with that situation.

Then he said something about another Coal Crisis, and that in the winter we might be moving into a difficult period, and somebody might start a law action in some way or another and that somehow, this Amendment would make it more difficult for the Government to deal with that situation.

I believe that much of the trouble during the so-called Coal Crisis in the early part of this year was a transport problem.

If we had tackled it even when we had the Coal Crisis last year, and it was known that we had lost £200 million of goods, we would be better off than we are now.

Let me see what happened when, as the right hon. Gentleman may remember, the Coal Crisis broke on 7th February.

After the Coal Crisis of February last year, which seems to have fallen upon Ministers like a bolt from the blue unheralded by any act of their intelligences although they had been warned before about it, we Were told that the target was raised to five million tons of fuel oil and later to six million tons of fuel oil, in order to save some 10 million tons of coal.

the Coal Crisis and the further development of the dollar crisis in the spring and summer of 1947, which made the rulers in Moscow think that the hour had now come and that it was possible to throw over all conciliation and to adopt a more drastic line.

However, it is interesting to note - and I think we should bear it in mind - that while production in 1947, owing to the Coal Crisis, the financial crisis, and other difficulties, did not show up well, production in 1948 has been very good.

Then we began to have our troubles here, the American Loan began to peter out, and we had the Coal Crisis, and so the Russians thought that thehour had struck when they might be able to interfere in the affairs of Western Europe.

Sir Waldron Smithers asked the Minister of Transport if, in view of the Coal Crisis and the decision to import coal, he will circularise local authorities requesting them to assist in reducing the consumption of gas and electricity by restricting the use of street lamps in country roads and lanes, especially in the rural districts of urban and borough areas.

asked the Minister of Transport if, in view of the Coal Crisis and the decision to import coal, he will circularise local authorities requesting them to assist in reducing the consumption of gas and electricity by restricting the use of street lamps in country roads and lanes, especially in the rural districts of urban and borough areas.

The Minister has given a very full and, undoubtedly, a very interesting survey of the whole position in the coalfields and of the Present Coal Crisis.

The Minister has given a very full and, undoubtedly, a very interesting survey of the whole position in the coalfields and of the present Coal Crisis.

I hope that it will include the relationships between the Ministry of Fuel and Power and other Ministries which are vitally concerned in the ultimate implications of a Coal Crisis.

Members opposite disagree, but if we do not overcome This Coal Crisis we shall all go down.

Doubtless, in moving their Motion, the Opposition are prompted by the presence of the so-called Coal Crisis.

Mr. A. Lewis asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will make a statement on his discussions held on 21st November with the representatives of the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Coal Board to deal with the Coal Crisis.

We have had a Coal Crisis through exporting coal; now we are having a tin crisis.

If the Minister was complacent in July, he was reckless in the interview which he gave to the Press on 25th September when the risk of Another Coal Crisis was apparent to all save the Minister.

Another cold winter brings us to the edge of Another Coal Crisis.

Does he expect the underfed and over-taxed worker going back home to feel more inclined to look kindly upon the Coal Crisis just because there are no electric signs and no lightingin the windows of the shops?

In the autumn we had the Coal Crisis approaching, and apparently the Government did not foresee it, but we are now in a second crisis as a result of their continual lateness in taking measures to try to meet the crisis.

One was the very interesting and definite prediction by the hon. Gentleman of a Coal Crisis next winter.

Mr. Robson-Brown asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will make arrangements to purchase substantial tonnages of coal from abroad so that this coal may be brought into the country in sufficient tonnages to avert Another Coal Crisis next winter.

Not only did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) show how completely incapable he was, during the latter period of his term of office, of dealing with the economic difficulties which were apparent to him, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Noel-Baker) showed from his speech how incapable he was of dealing with the Coal Crisis when he was in office.

They said earlier that there would be a Terrible Coal Crisis and that they would have to import coal.

There was a very severe winter, which has often been referred to as "the Great Coal Crisis".

While I can understand the point of view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), I think perhaps it is the fact that the public as well were so surprised by the suggestion that it would be possible to get through the winter without a Coal Crisis that they overlooked, or did not pay sufficient attention to, the qualifying phrase used by the National Coal Board, that it all depended on a satisfactory level of output.

The major cause of reduced output last year was lack of iron ore, brought about by having to divert shipping to take care of the Coal Crisis.

It may make the difference between our having a Coal Crisis and our not having a coal crisis.

We had long arguments last year on this subject, but everybody seems to have forgotten about the Coal Crisis because we have had a mild winter.

A million tons of coal may not sound very important when we think that our total consumption of coal is 220 million tons, but that one million tons might easily make the difference between having a Coal Crisis and not having a coal crisis.

We have been constantly reminded of the possibility of a Coal Crisis by the end of October in the absence of increased production.

We have been warned for months that we may be overtaken by a Disastrous Coal Crisis during the coming winter.

We have been warned for months that we may be overtaken by a disastrous Coal Crisis during the coming winter.

We had a Coal Crisis and 2 million people out of work.

We still talk about a Coal Crisis.

Paragraph 3 of the agreement states that until the end of the Coal Crisis - that is, as long as pithead stocks amount to more than 7 million tons - … the Contracting Parties will not take any steps which will lead to the replacement of coal by heavy heating oils, and they will not seek to gain new customers for heavy heating oils.

I prophesythat, if this process goes on, far from people like the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) being able to sneer about great quantities of coal on the surface, we shall, before the 'sixties are out, have Another Coal Crisis.

I hope that hon. Members will see how unfair it is, when we have had a Coal Crisis and stocks of coal we cannot get rid of, for the Government to subsidise the fishing industry to the tune of £14 million, some of which can be used to change from coal to oil.

Fortunately for the nation - we can never thank our lucky stars sufficiently - the Coal Crisis which the nation has had to face in the past four or five years occurred when we had a nationalised industry.

Mr. Marsh: I can think of few things more likely to cause a Crisis in the Coal 277 industry than that sort of remark—[Interruption.

for example, of the Coal Crisis in 1947–48 and January and February in the winter of 1963 - is not the 2 million unemployed that the First Secretary hurled across the Floor of the House, or one million - we only reached that in one week of the coal crisis I have mentioned.

To allow it to take the market trend and to allow coal stocks to be mopped up in that way would produce a situation which, in my view, would be socially unacceptable and would provide the country with a Serious Coal Crisis in the bargain.

I am very sorry that in the debate so far there has been no specific mention of any preparations being made for our troops to support the civil power in this country in an emergency, such as we had recently with the Coal Crisis.

The most obvious example of this in the Recent Coal Crisis was of course at the Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham, where 300 or 400 police were powerless against about 5,000 engineering workers on strike, accompanied by a few students and other hangers-on - [An Hon.

Unfortunately, during the Recent Coal Crisis, there was an impression in some quarters that the Government had been caught naked with no troops available and handy.

The last time we had a Coal Crisis.

All this would be serious enough without the Coal Crisis.

The right hon. Member the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said in the new year that the oil problem did not exist, that our only problem was the Coal Crisis.

The second was in 1947 during the Coal Crisis.

Has the right hon. Lady had the chance today to apply her mind to the question of the growing Coal Crisis?

The great fallacy that is perpetuated in the House - I have newspaper reports dealing with the Present Coal Crisis - is that we can easily contract the coal industry.

I do not apologise to the House for the amount of time that I have spent on talking about the Coal Crisis because it is central to the concerns of all of us in Scotland.

I was a Minister during the Coal Crisis.

Can he tell me why the good work of Heartbeat Wales and general practitioners everywhere in Wales has been so massively undermined in the past week by the stupid and inept handling of the Coal Crisis?

As with the Coal Crisis, the Government are wrong and have been shown to be wrong.

In it, he again decried every suggestion by the Select Committee on Energy and other informed bodies on a way out of the Coal Crisis.

It was also discourteous to the House, which has repeatedly been promised an opportunity to debate the Select Committee's report and the Government's response when the Government eventually publish their repeatedly delayed White Paper on the Coal Crisis.

It was the privatisation of electricity and the model used by the Government that thrust us into the Coal Crisis.

A recent example of a Committee that came nearest to moving in that direction was the Select Committee on Industry which discussed the Coal Crisis.

Does my hon. Friend recall that the noble Lord was called in during the Coal Crisis, when the Government wanted to close pits, to sort out the problem, and that he chaired a Cabinet committee to resolve the issue?

This evening there was a Coal Crisis all-party meeting at which I heard an enormous amount of good sense talked by advisers to the TUC, by coal management and by some Labour Members.

The review that I was instrumental in commissioning in 1997 was intended to deal with the Coal Crisis.