BREAKING THE STRIKE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 155, 1 July 1911, Page 5

BREAKING THE STRIKE.

BRITISH SHIPPING LAID UP. HALF THE TOTAI, TONNAGE. AN AGREEMENT REJECTED. RIOTING AT HUIX. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, June 30. The Shipping Federation is arranging to temporarily lay up half the shipping tonnage of the United Kingdom in order to break the strike. Mr. G R. Askwith, of the Board of Irade. who is endeavouring to settle the seamen's strike, presided at a conference at Hull yesterday afternoon between representatives of the shipowners and the men. The delegates included seamen, firemen dockers, lightermen, and coal porters The terms agreed upon by the confer- | ence included a Saturday half-holiday for i dockers and a half-day weekly for sailors '• and firemen. The masters agreed not to compel a ' man to have a Federation ticket. Weekly wages were fixed at 32/6, bein<r an advance of 2/6, n nd the monthly wWre was fixed at f-1 10/ for sailors, and £4 15/ for firemen. The men's leaders afterwards submitted the proposed settlement to a crowd of 12,000 assembled outside tho Station Hotel. Mr. Askwith, in a speech to the crowd. ' stated that the men's representatives endorsed the agreement, also a large committee of workers who had been consulted. The crowd, however, greeted the proposal to accept with shouts of "No! No! We will starve first! Go back to the employers." The dockers, who were in the majority, were particularly insistent against the agreement. Directly it was apparent that the agreement would be rejected. 2000 strikers went to Albert Dock with a view to boarding the steamer Calypso to bring ashore the supposed non-unionists. The attack was unexpected., all the police be- ! ing engaged in guarding the Station ITotel. Four policemen were roughly handled while endeavouring to explain to the strikers that they were under a misapprehension regarding those working on the Oalypeo. A hundred policemen, ' marching at the double, came to their rescue, and using their batons, freely drove the strikers to the bridge, from which they threw stones, bricks, and broken bottles. The police charged up the steps, and after the charge 17 police and strikers were taken to the hospital, and many others were injured. The strikers also wrecked the exterior of the Shipping Federation's labour bureau, and Wilson's shipping offices, and ' are now parading the town wrecking • lamp posts and tearing up flagstones. Earlier in the day 400 women, many carrying babine, assembled at the offices of the Independent Labour party, where i the distribution of grocery tickets was | made. ; A free fight ensued upon the discovery | that some of the women were the wives of men in full work. TUe police intervened and the distribution of groceries | was stopped. Five hundred London metropolitan police have been sent to Hull. The rioting continued until 2 in the morning. ' Several constables and a score of civilians , being injured. The mounted police charged and dispersed the mobs. The police at Manchester were rein- | forced in the vicinity of the docks. j

Three thousand new members of tho Dockers' Union have been enrolled in Liverpool. The Lancashire and Yorkshire railwayrnen in the northern docks decline to handle goods landed by "blackleg" labour. The Suevic's apples from Tasmania are undischarged, and it is probable that the Papanui's will be similarly held up. Outbreaks of fire in four places occurred aboard the Arabic, and incendiarism is suspected. The joint strike committee at Liverpool issued a list of 24 firms who agreed to a satisfactory settlement, but 2000 dockers still revolt against tho mere recognition of the union, and insist on a guarantee of union wages. Fifteen thousand aro idle in Hull as a result of the strike. Two squadrons of Scotch Guards are in York, ready to proceed to Hull. The dockers at Liverpool ignored the leaders' appeal to accept the settlement, and started a fresli revolt. At Antwerp members of the Shippers' Union agreed to pay the wages current in Hamburg and other competing Continental ports. Dockers at Amsterdam arc molesting I the non-union men and their wives and I children. They broke in a ship chandler's windows, and maltreated the employers. Twenty Chinese stokers' have arrived to sign on Netherland liners. I • "