BAD START.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 43, 20 February 1929, Page 7

BAD START.

PEACE CONFERENCE. Labour Leaders Promptly Withdraw. PANDEMONIUM REIGNS. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) SYDNEY, February 19. The conference called with the object of devising plans for the maintenance of peace in industry assembled in the Sydney Town Hall to-day. Sir Wallace Bruce presided. A stir was caused when Mr. Norman Jeffreys, of the New .South Wales Labour Council, and Mr. D. Davies, delegate from the Miners' Federation, announced their intention of withdrawing. Before they left the hail they handed in type-written statements giving the reasons for their action. Mr. James MacDougal. leader of the employers' delegation, intimated at the outset that he had been authorised publicly to pledge every member of that delegation to a policy of patience and reason. He expressed a hope that the conference would be able to formulate practical recommendations for the guidance of the Commonwealth Government which had asked for them.

Mr. MacDougal said he regretted the absence of many representative Labour delegates, the absentees including representatives of the Australian Workers' Union.

At the conclusion of Mr. MacDougal's speech pandemonium reigned owing to wholesale interjections from unemployed men in the galleries.

"Fools," "'boodlers/' "loafers," shouted several of these men to the delegates sitting below. Particularly insulting exclamations were shouted at Mr. C. McDonald, chairman of the Northern Collieries' Association.

The police were summoned and removed the interjectors. The conference then settled down to a discussion of industrial problems.

"ALL IN ,, STRIKE.

Unions Disagree Concerning Tactics. NEW SOUTH WALES CRISIS. (Received 11.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, this day. An "all in" strike on all the coalfields of the State, following the closing of most of the Northern collieries is now a distinct probability. This development is mainly due to a dispute concerning the tactics among the unions concerned. Indications are that the Miners' Federation is endeavouring to force upon the allied unions that a certain line of at-ti -i will only result in the militant minority group being enabled to achieve its expressed purpose of throwing all the mines idle.

TIRED OF IDLENESS.

TIMBERMEN RETURN TO WORK. (Received 11.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, this day. A large number of timber workers in the Newcastle district resumed work in the knowledge that they were binding themselves to observe the 4S-hour week. The men at Wagjra, as the result of a secret ballot, resumed work under the Lukin award.

SHRIEKING AMAZONS.

Furious Attack On Plain Clothes Policeman. TIMBERMENS WIVES ? (Received 10 a.m.) .MELBOURNE, this day. Fifteen women, said to be the wives of timber workers, attacked a plain clothes constable outside the Caulfield mill. They knocked him down and belaboured him with their umbrellas, shouting and shrieking the while. Thev tore his shirt to shreds and fell on him. One Amazon, in the last round, sat on his head, while 500 people looked on and laughed themselves to tears, but gave no help to the victim. Two uniformed policemen arrived and brandished their batons. They arrested rive shrieking, hysterical women.