NO GENERAL STRIKE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 182, 1 August 1913, Page 5

NO GENERAL STRIKE.

RAND LABOUR DECISION. -(TILL TAKE POLITICAL ACTION. GOVERNMENT PREPARATIONS. MOBILISING THE BURGHERS. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 11.20 a.m.) JOHANNESBURG, July 31. A meeting of the Trades Federation resolved that no general strike should be declared at the present juncture. The Federation will rely on industrial political organisation to remedy the grievances of the miners and railwaymen. Before this decision was arrived at a conference of fifty delegates of the Amalgamated Engineers' Society and the Raihvaymcn's Society passed a resolution that the Government's offers and employers' terms were inadequate. The Government's preparations continue. Twenty thousand burghers will be mobilised if necessary. ARSENAL AT GERMASTON. Germiston, which is an important railway junction, has been turned into an arsenal, containing heavy ordnance, machine guns, and much ammunition. An important conference of all the unions begins at Johannesburg to-day. Many of the railwaymen are beginning to fear the results of extreme action, and an illegal strike. Strikers on the Government railways will forfeit their pensions and seniority. Would-be railway strikers are demanding that the T,rades Federation shall guarantee the fixed condition that any settlement shall include restoration of the railwaymen's privileges forfeited by striking. The railwaymen of Salt River and Touws River have passed resolutions against a general strike without a ballot. ASKWITH THE PEACEMAKER. Some of the -workers are asking Sir George Askwith, the British Industrial Commissioner, to arbitrate. Mr. Poutsman, secretary of the Railwaymen's Society, states that the railwaymen have totally disassociated themselves from revolutionary propaganda, consequently they have secured the overthrow of a secret committee formed on Sunday with absolute revolutionary j powers. j The Trades Federation's Executive and i the -Railwaymen's Executive will conduct future negotiations jointly. ■ The evidence given before the Judicial | Commission inquiring into the strike j riots showed that 1,000 revolvers, manyi rifles, and IS.OOO rounds of ammunition | were looted from gunsmiths' shops oni the night of July 4. The police andj troops were subjected to a two hours'| fusillade, chiefly from hooligans, and snipers from buildings. The Socialist | leaders, earlier in the evening, incited the mob .to shoot and burn.