APPEAL LODGED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 48, 6 December 1946, Page 3

APPEAL LODGED

CONVICTION OF JOHN L. LEWIS MINERS TO STAND FIRM (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 12.15) WASHINGTON, Dec. 5. John L. Lewis’s lawyers have lodged an, appeal to the United States Circuit Court against his own and U.M.W.A.’s conviction for contempt of court in not averting the coalminers’ walk-out. The lawyers have also lodged with the Federal Court a bond for Lewis’s personal line of 10,000 dollars and the union’s fine of 3,500,000 dollars pending the result of the appeal. Simultaneously the A.F.L. president (Mr William Green) who is now a close associate of Lewis, issued a statement urging a conference between the soft coal mineowners and Lewis in an effort to settle the dispute. “The nation’s coalminers ,will interpret the heavy penalty imposed on them and their leader as an attempt to wreck the union. This will serve to develop a more hostile phychological 4 condition throughout the nation’s mining areas. Resort to the use of the injunction violates the Norris-La Guardia Act. Labour is confident that Judge Goldsborough’s. decision will be reversed. Force and punishment and involuntary servitude do not square with/the principles of justice and democracy. Working men must be free, and they are determined to remain free.” BROADCAST BY PRESIDENT APPEAL TO BE MADE TO MINERS (Rec. 12.30) WASHINGTON, Dec. 5. The White House announced that President Truman is making a nationwide radio speech at 2.30 a.m. (G.M.T.) on December 9 in which he will appeal to the coalminers to return to work. The solid fuels administration has called on State Governments to take the strongest measures immediately to conserve coal. It is emphasised that the strike in May and the present walk-out have “placed the nation at the very brink of economic paralysis, and have threatened unprecedented hardship and suffering during the winter. Every community is faced with the possibility of having insufficient coal to preserve its health.” The newspaper “P.M.,” in a leading article on the Lewis case, says: r'Whatever legal victory the Government has won has been purchased at a monstrously high price. If the strike continues several more weeks, industry and transport will be paralysed and labour further embittered. 'The nation’s hysterical tension has deepened. It is unthinkable that America should continue along this tragic path, because it is caught in a feud in which each side has gone too far to itself.”