NEWCASTLE A general stoppage of coal production in New South Wales is feared after colliery members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union on the northern coalfields decided at aggregate meetings to stop work at once, according to a Newcastle message.

HELSINKI Finland's delegation has decided to go on to Moscow, where it will negotiate until the last hope of a settlement fades, a Finnish Foreign Office spokesman said after contacting the delegates at the border, according to a Helsinki message. The delegates want to avoid any Soviet claim that Finland broke off the talks.

LIBAU Four trainloads of Soviet troops, munitions, artillery and lorries have arrived at the military harbour at Libau, which the Latvian garrison had evacuated beforehand, the Libau correspondent of the Associated Press writes, according to a London message.

LONDON Nearly 2,500 Allied merchant ships have sailed under convoy, and only eight ships in convoy have been lost, British Official Wireless reports. Three of those losses fell on the same convoy.

LISBON August Zaleski, the Polish Foreign Minister, has said in an interview that he hopes 12 Polish divisions will be ready to fight beside the British and French by the spring, according to a Lisbon message. He estimated that 500,000 Poles are ready to fight for Poland and Christianity.

NEW DELHI Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy, has met Mahatma Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad, the president of the Congress Party, and M. A. Jinnah, the president of the Moslem League, at his residence in New Delhi, according to a New Delhi message. It is the first time the Viceroy has met the party leaders, the message says, and it calls the meeting one of the most momentous in India's political history.

PARIS French troops have repelled a German force that tried to surround a village in the northern sector of the Western Front, according to a Paris message. The heavy guns of the Siegfried Line have been in their most consistent action of the war, and the message says some believe this may herald a large offensive.

LONDON The Royal Air Force has carried out a successful reconnaissance of north-western Germany in the last 24 hours and taken photographs, the Air Ministry announced, according to a London message. All the aircraft returned.

BERLIN Political circles in Berlin have welcomed Vyacheslav Molotov's speech to the Supreme Soviet as proof of complete Soviet-German agreement, according to a London message. The speech has made an excellent impression and explains itself so completely that comment is unnecessary, they say.