COMMUNITY HELD TO RANSOM

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24741, 5 December 1945, Page 7

COMMUNITY HELD TO RANSOM

Effect of Miners’

Ballot

ONLY 15 PER CENT, VOTE FOR STRIKE (Special Australian Corresp., N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Dec. 4. The effect of the vote at yesterday’s aggregate meetings on the • coalfields ts that 15 per cent, of the miners are holding the community to ransom. < , Only 4722 miners out of 18,000 voted at yesterday's meetings. Of these 2717 voted for the strike and 2005 against. It is believed that the great bulk of the miners deliberately stayed away from the meetings because they were against the strike. The “Sydney Morning Herald’s" iridustrial correspondent says; “The miners’ vote represents the most emphatic rebuff ever given by the rank and file of the Miners’ Federation to their leaders, and especially the Communists amongst their leaders. Never before in more than 100 years of coal unrest in New South Wales has the miners’ leadership had to begin a general strike in the knowledge that less than 20 per cent, of the membership is actively favouring the strike. Yesterday’s meetings were the smallest in strike history. The voting was by open ballot, and the fact that less than one-third of the miners attended the meetings places emphasis on the need for a secret ballot when such a decision is being made.’’ Commenting on the voting figures, the Commonwealth Coal Commissioner <M r N. Mighell) said the result was an example of how a minority got its way when the majority was apathetic. “It is a dreadful state of affairs,” he added, “that in the absente of a secret ballot any matter can be decided by about one-third of the members of an organisation. If there had been a secret ballot’ and all those entitled to vote had voted, those against the strike would have swamped the poll.” While hopes of a settlement of the strike are placed on Mr Chilley’s meeting with the union leaders in Canberra to-morrow, the position will be aggravated if mass meetings of miners in other States decide to extend the dispute. The Miners’ Federation has been empowered to extend the strike to all mines in Australia, and a vote will be taken in Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia to-morrow. Hopes for Settlement Commenting on the decision of the unions to invoke the assistance of the Prime Minister, the president of the Minei's’ Federation (Mr H. Wells) said: “It is very good that steps are being taken by the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, the Trades and Labour Council, and the unions involved, to begin negotiations with the Prime Minister that can lead to a speedy and satisfactory end to the dispute.” It is believed in political quarters that Mr Chifiey will not be able to tell to-morrow’s delegation anything involving any alteration in the Government's policy of non-intervention. Government supporters point out that Mr Chifiey could do so only by surrendering the authority of the Government to that of mob rule. They also say that to yield now would be to involve the Australian Labour Party and the Council of Trade Unions, and the sections -which have been fighting for settlement of the dispute by constitutional methods, in defeat at the hands of Communist union leaders. The “Sydney Morning Herald?’ in an editorial, says: “A show-down has come. Mingled with public alarm and anger at the prospect of widespread unemployment, distress, and impoverishment, resulting from the extremists’ challenge, must be the conviction that the struggle now joined was inescapable, and that it must be fought to a finish. That the Communists and their henchmen will be defeated is a foregone conclusion unless the Government provides them with a way out.”