Australian
Screen

Clip description

This clip depicts life for Australian miners prior to the Second World War. Mine pits and shafts are abandoned because of fire or flood and coal miners move to the next job, leaving behind ghost towns in their wake. Mine owners inspect an abandoned pit as the narrator explains it was more profitable to move on to the next site than mine the former pit to capacity. Archival footage of the Second World War is intercut with scenes of increased industry and production for the nation’s defence. High demand for coal sees miners return to previously abandoned and ill-equipped pits, risking injury and death in dangerous conditions. The clip includes colour, monochrome and hand-painted segments of film.

Curator’s notes

The narration blames mismanagement and the drive for profit for the abandonment and closure of mines before they had realised their full load of coal. The refrain 'we took it out by the hundred thousand tons’ is a heavy lament in this clip – conveying the hard work undertaken by the miners for little reward. Labour (miners and their families) and capital (mine owners) are contrasted through both the choice of images and the persuasive first-person voice-over by Leonard Teale. The phrase 'branch off to the left, branch off to the right’ is transposed from clip one (where it referred to methods of expanding early mines) and spoken over scenes of the forced migration of coal labourers and mine owners seeking easy profits elsewhere.

Footage from a Cinesound newsreel was hand-painted and used to illustrate the revival of the coal industry during the Second World War. See also Charles Chauvel’s wartime short Power to Win (1942), which was made to boost the morale of miners and drive home how crucial their industry was to the war effort.