Coal stocks threat to jobs in pits

MASSIVE stockpiling of coal could undermine the position of the miners' union and lead to a new programme of pit closures.

There are now 33 million tons of coal in stoc k and during the summer stock levels could reach 41 million tons by mid-October.

Mr Roy Mason, Labour MP for Barnsley, said at the weekend: 'In 1967 the Coal Board reached 41 million tons and resulted in a pit closure programme.' Mr Mason omits to say that he was himself Minister of Power in the Labour government at that time!

Only some 12.8 million tons of the stocks remain undisturbed. The Central Electricity Generating Board, for example, now has stocks of 16 million tons compared with the 12 million tons Convictions for Aldershot blast 'unsafe'-QC claims SEVEN murder convictions against Noel Thomas Jenkinson following the bombing of the Parachute Regiment officers' mess at Aldershot were • 'unsafe and unsatisfactory, a QC claimed in the Court of Appeal in London yesterday.

Strict security precautions surrounded the hearing of an application by Jenkinson (42), transport manager, for leave to Sa Shooting in Santiago during recent demonstrations.

Muck' and hypocrisy STOP ALL this filth and muckraking over Watergate, Poulson, Lonrho, etc.—it's getting too much for the sanctimonious gentlemen in dog collars.

The Archbishop of York, Dr Coggan, told the faithful that to 'concentrate on the muck, you miss the crown, ... whatever that may mean!

Addressing a congregation at York Minster, Coggan said: "Vietnam and Belfast; call girls and Lonrho; Watergate and drugs... The newspapers have a field day with • the muck rake recently - and the heap stinks?

He said it all resulted from a rejection of God and absolute moral values. Then he added: 'We ought not to be too over censorious. All of us have a share in the human tragedy of the mucking up of God's With unrivalled clarity, Coggan exposes the utter hypocrisy of the God-believers.

They spend their lives haranguing people, particularly the poorer working class, about the virtues and godliness of honesty, integrity and morality.

But the minute leaders of world capitalism are thrust the limelight with their had before miners' 1972.

Such large stocks already removed from the pit heads could undermine the position of the union in any major strike. The lessons of the 1972 picketing has been learned by the major coal-users.

A National Union of Mineworkers' spokesman commented: 'It doesn't necessarily follow that bigger stocks could mean closures. We're in a hell of a different position now than we were five or ten years ago.

'We couldn't sell coal then. And then the Labour Government's White Paper in 1967 led to closures.

'Now there's a shortage of energy. There's an oil crisis in the United States. It's a totally different situation.

'It's a good thing the Electricity Board and the others have big coal stocks, it means they carry the cost and not us. I'm not impressed by the argument that it would help them against us in a strike. It's not as if we were going on strike every six months.

appeal against his convictions at Winchester Crown Court on November 14.

Jenkinson was jailed for life with a recommendation that he serve at least 30 years after being convicted of the killing of five waitresses, a gardener and a Roman Catholic padre in the bombing.

The seven died after 200 Ibs of explosives stored in the boot of a Ford Cortina exploded outbugging equipment, their drugs, their tax nadles, their prostitutes and their weapons of death — we get a polite sermon about not being 'over censorious'. 'There are many signs today. that hosts of thoughtful people are beginning once again to take note of what the psalmists say,' Coggan heap, taking the muck said. "They are fed up Who are these 'hosts of thoughtful people'?

We don't believe they exist.

The really thoughtful people are demanding that there be a complete exposure of all the last year. mess on February side Mr Myers told Lord Justice Edmund Davies, Mr Justice Bean and Mr Justice Croom-Johnson, that he was putting forward two main grounds of appeal on Jenkinson's behalf.

Counsel contended that all seven murder convictions were unsafe and that a further charge against Jenkinson — not brought to London's Law Courts yesterday SALVADOR has warned preparing a his Popular cabinet. lies and corruption which are an integral part of the capitalist It is this thoroughgoing exposure which frightens the dog-collar crowd.

But their pathetic sermons can't quell the tide of anger and indignation against capitalism and its ugly face.

In the same process Coggan and his brethren should be asked to explain about church shareholdings in the racialist republic of South Africa and the landlording practices : of the Church Commissioners in London and elsewhere.

He told a meeting of trade union leaders in Santiago that they would fail because the army was loyal to the constitutional regime. Like Allende, the army chief-of-staff General Carlos Prats is a freemason. He is thought likely to take over the Ministry of Defence in a new crisis After four days of violent street fighting in Santiago, in which one man was killed and 68 wounded, the country is perilously close to civil war. The rioting in Santiago began when strikers from El Teniente copper mine demanding a 41 per cent pay rise marched on the capital and erected barricades in the streets.

Leaders of the Christian Democrats and the National Right, the extreme right-wing opposition, took part in the demonstration and clashes. They have seized on the regime's anti-working class measures and their refusal to accord the miners' wage increase in order to sow confusion.

Allende's government—a coalition of Stalinists, Radicals and Social Democrats—is now almost completely reliant on the armed forces. The copper dispute is estimated to have cost the country about $40m through the enforced suspension of exports.

IN 117 during miners for the hearing — should never have been brought against him.

The charge of effecting a public mischief was in fact withdrawn from the jury's consideration by the trial judge at the end of the evidence in the case. But Mr Myers alleged the facts involved in the charge had the effect of building a 'massive wall of prejudice against Jenkinson, and should never have been before the jury.

ALLENDE, president of Chile, that his right-wing opponents are coup d'état to try and overthrow Unity regime.

SOCIALIST LABOUR

LEAGUE LECTURES Liverpool given Sunday June 24 Trade Unions and polit struggle in Britain Sunday July ihartism, yesterday and Sunday July 15 The Revolutionary Party and the British working class Stanley Halls er Parliament Street SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE LECTURES