FOOD SHORTAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 292, 10 December 1936, Page 9

FOOD SHORTAGE.

SHIPPING DEADLOCK.

CONFUSION IN AMERICA. HAWAII'S SERIOUS PLIGHT. (Prom Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, November 10. Blithely and indifferent to fate the people of the Pacific have faced the strangling shipping deadlock, scarcely giving a thought to the imminent food shortage, but as the stocks in the grocery shops began to become depleted and shopkeepers started to ration out their foodstuffs, the millions of residents of tlie Pacific Coast slowly realised that something of a dread nature had fallen upon the western country through the tie-up of some 150 vessels from all parts of the world, principally the United States. It was noticed that prices were gradually creeping upward and this had the immediate effect of attracting the attention of the housewives already paying high charges fox* the necessities of life. The "Auckland Star" representative made a tour of the five-mile San I rancisco waterfront and found the hundred spacious docks virtually all deserted, with hardly a vessel in sight, with the exception of a few steamers which were at peaceful anchor "in the stream." Hundreds of striking maritime workers were patrolling the various docks in San Francisco, with occasional armed police in evidence, but there was not the slightest semblance of violence. In fact, in several instances, burly bluecoats were seen fraternising with the unionist pickets, some of them having relatives in the force or employed usually on the San Francisco waterlront moving the commerce of the world. The happiest good feeling continued to exist for there was no trouble of a physical character in the offing.

Appeal Sent to President. Widespread and urgent appeals for relief from the effects of the maritime strike were sent to President Roosevelt and the Department of Labour, but failed to bring an assurance of immediate action and peace negotiations remained at a stalemate.

Secretary of Labour Frances Perkins, emerging from a. Cabinet meeting in Washington, said there was no thought at that moment of Presidential intervention. Governor Joseph B. Poindexter, of Hawaii Territory, cabled from Honolulu to San Francisco to Assistant Secretary of Labour Edward McGrady, revealing a most serious situation in the Hawaiian Islands. He stated that seven steamers were deadlocked there with 885 world passengers and crews numbering 844, all tied up in Honolulu. He said these 1720 people were eating ashore, and were depleting the normal foodstuff supplies of the people of Honolulu correspondingly. School children were the greatest sufferers, and were being impoverished as a consequence of the maritime stagnation. Three hundred passengers who were scheduled to sail for San Francisco on the Lurline already had obtained accommodations, but many were reported very short of funds.

Among the stranded passengers was Anna May Wong, Chinese motion picture actress who had arrived from China on the President Pierce. Others were navy officers and their families bound for the Orient on the President Hayes. Extraordinary Recourses. World tourists who had been stranded in San Francisco chafed at inability to secure passage aboard steamers, and some went to the extraordinary recourse of actually transferring to the Japanese liner Tatsuta Maru, sailing from ban Francisco for Honolulu, and thus violating the American regulations! were compelled to individually pay the United States Government officials the sum o 200 dollars as the penalty for travelling on a foreign ship between two American ports. In most cases these passengers paid the assessment willingly. American travellers engaged in business and pleasure enterprises flocked to Canadian north-west ports in the hop of finding transportation to the Orient. The Dollar Line in San Francisco cancelled 500 reservations for the Orient aboard, the President Hoover.

The longshoremen ancl sailors of the , Pacific sent a cablegram from San Francisco to the waterside workers of Wellington asking them and their afiili- ; ates in Melbourne and Sydney to give them "co-operation and support" and to go so far as to refuse to handle any cargo loaded in Pacific Coast ports of the United States if loaded by strikebreakers. Officials of the maritime workers in San Francisco said they had received such support from the New Zealand and Australian waterside workers during the memorable general strike in San Francisco in 1034. Silk Goes Back to Orient. The Tatsuta Marti carried several thousand tons of raw silk destined for the eastern coast of the United States, but upon arrival in San Francisco the expensive cargo had to remain aboard, as longshoremen refused to unload it for a waiting special train. This silk consignment and 1,000,000 dollars' worth of .general cargo had to be carried back to the Orient, as it could not be unloaded. The Seattle strike committee permitted the release of seven carloads of storage eggs for the New York market, but deferred decision on handling other perishables. A Customs service report showed Alaska had stocked up 2,512,922 dollars more goods in September and October than in the same period a year ago, evidently in anticipation of the strike. Difficulties arose in San Francisco when there was a walk-out of unionists sent to load two carloads of medicines and other doctors' supplies required for Government hospitals for the army, navy and marine corps at 22 western American hospitals. The supplies were stored at North Point in San Francisco on Government garrison property and were intended for veterans' hospitals in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, and totalled about twenty tons, and were urgently needed. When the squad of unionists arrived at North Point they walked out through a dispute about' wages. Hurriedly, the situation was discussed by union officials who later reported there had been a misunderstanding and in three hours further squads of unionists were dis" patched to North Point to load the two carloads for consignment to the various States. The union official. slated emphatically they were co-operating 100 per cent with the Government and had no intention cf try'ug to cause trouble.