OTR COAL AKD OUB COAL POETS. 107 



winds the avowed and too paltry idea of maintaining a sort of 

 GrOTernment monopoly of the haulage of coals from the different 

 collieries to Newcastle, and by prompt action encourage all the 

 colliery Companies to expend their own capital in the adoption of 

 private railways to the nearest shipping points on the river above 

 Newcastle, in the same way that the Waratah Company now 

 enjoys the use of its own line, with its own locomotives to and 

 from their own shipping wharf and twin " shoots" at the so-called 

 "Port Waratah" on the river bank, four miles above Newcastle. 



The " Wallsend," the " Old Lambton," the " New Lambton," 

 and the " Co-operative" collieries are all obliged to crowd their 

 coal on to Newcastle wharf and to the steam cranes ; whereas 

 " Waratah," by some happy political fluke, enjoys the right of 

 having their own railway line, and can convey all their large 

 " output" of coals to the ships at their own wharf at a working 

 expense for the line of only 2|d. a ton, over a distance of four 

 miles from the coal pits ; whilst all the other Companies, close to 

 them, are obliged to use the Government locomotives for the 

 hanlage of their coal to Newcastle, at an expense of not less than 

 lOd. for the shortest distance. 



Thus it would seem that the Grovernment should either, by 

 themselves, promptly connect the above-named collieries by rail 

 by the present crossing of the Waratah line over the Great 

 Northern line; give ample wharfage and shipping accommodation 

 just below the river boundary frontage of the Waratah Company ; 

 or, let the Companies have the right of doing all this themselves. 

 Then to let each Company carry on its own shipping business in 

 the same manner as the " Waratah" does. 



But as only vessels of from 500 to 700 tons can go so far up 

 the river, I would suggest (the above important arrangement 

 being first conceded) that it should then become a port regulation 

 that all vessels and steamers under (say) 600 tons, should be com- 

 pelled to take their coals from the new wharfs on the river, and 

 thus leave the Newcastle wharf and its steam cranes for the sole 

 use of the larger ships, to be supplied as at present from the 

 .collieries by the direct Great Northern trunk line ; the A. A. 

 Company's coal supplies from their " Borehole" mine being 

 necessarily excluded from this restriction, as that colliery, being 

 to the eastward of Newcastle, is quite difterently situated from 

 the others. 



If this suggestion should find favour, I foresee great extension 

 of business at Newcastle and its neighbourhood, by the gradual 

 association with every colliery of iron or other smelting works on 

 the river bank, or near their pits, whereby to utilize their own 

 small coal in the same manner that the Waratah Company dis- 

 pose of over 30,000 tons each year of its small coal to the great 

 Waratah and Moonta Copper Smelting Works ; and which works, 



