DECISION OF THE A.W.U.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 63, 7 December 1917, Page 6

DECISION OF THE A.W.U.

$__ MINERS PROTEST AGAINST MR. RUSSELL'S STATEMENT. "This conference, after reading a statement made by the Hon. G. W. Russell with respect to the shortage of shearers in New Zealand, asserting that 'not one of our New Zealand unions' agrees with the policy of the Australian Workers' Union in refusing to allow its members to leave for New Zealand to take the place of New_ Zealand workers who have been conscripted, or arc to be, wishes to protest .that not only is tho New Zealand Miners' Federation in sympathy with that policy, •■but that within the past/ week or so tho Wellington Trades Council has issued a manifesto in which it.lias denounced the attempt of the New Zealand Government to get Australian lahour in place of the.New Zealand labour conscripted. . This conference of the New Zealand Miners' Federation also fishes to express its surprise that the Minister who took the anti-con-scription result of the first referendum as an occasion to sneer at the Australians as of 'criminal taint, , and whose colleagues in the 'National' Cabinet have consistently insulted Australia for its 'No' vote, should now be so anxious to- import Australian labour to repair the damage done our economic system by military conscription. Further, this conference congratulates tho A.W.U. on its attitude, and hopes that it will persist in it." ■REPLY BY THE MINISTER. The foregoing statement was submitted to the Hon. G. W. Russell last night. Mr. Eussell made the following remark upon it:—"The only answer I can give is that I think that the statements made do not reflect the general opinion of the -workers of New Zealand, or of the intelligent section of the. Miners' Federation. A number of miners, I know, have already joined the Forces, and, especially in connection with the Tunnelling Corps, have done splendid work at the_ front as.representatives o four Dominion. I very much prefer to accept these men as representing the patriotic and loyal sentimont of the miners, rather than those who are responsible for the expressions mode in' this statement purporting to come from the Federation of Miners' Unions."