TO PUNISH STRIKERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 65, 18 March 1925, Page 5

TO PUNISH STRIKERS.

LEGISLATION DESIRED. MELBOURNE, March 17. The conference of the Chambers of Commerce to-day resolved to make a strong appeal to the Federal and State Governments to pass effective legislation to deal with industrial disturbances and to organise all the practical measures necessary to maintain a continuity of transport by land and sea. One delegate suggested that strikers should be disfranchised automatically. The conference also agreed to a motion to the effect that it viewed with alarm the propaganda aimed at the subversion of constitutional principles. It urged the Federal Government -to take action to acquire power by legislation, if necessary, for the punishment of the enemies of order and constitutional authority.— (A. and N.Z. Cable. )* CLERK'S SAD SUICIDE. ILL-HEALTH AND OVERWORK. LONDON, March 17. Overwork, ill-health, and fear of losing his lifetime's savings, drove Joshua Baldwin Smith, aged 35 years, a clerk to the Swindon Corporation, to suicide in an unprecedented fashion. He crawled through a hole only a foot square in the floor of a new unoccupied house. He was found there with his throat cut and a ra7or in his hand seven weeks after his disappearance. Tlie discovery was made by the purchaser of the house. ( i. and N.Z. Cable.)