VOLUNTEER WORKERS RETALIATE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 128, 24 February 1930, Page 11

VOLUNTEER WORKERS RETALIATE

o— FREE FIGHTS AT NEWCASTLE UNIONISTS’ -INSULTS RESENTED z (Rec. February 23, 5.5 p.m.) Sydney, February 23. A number of free labourers who had just been paid off at a shipping office at Newcastle yesterday were crossing a street when a unionist hurled a muchused epithet descriptive of his scorn for volunteer workers. Then the trouble started. He was chased, others joined in, and almost instantly half-a-dozen free fights were in progress.

The police arrived and made one arrest and restored peace for a time. The crowds grew, however, evidently awaiting the next outbreak. This was not long in coming. A row started in an hotel bar, spread outside, and when a policeman arrested the man who appeared to be the principal in the affair sympathisers asked why the free labourer was not taken, too, and began to close in threateningly. Police reinforcements arrived, got their man to the station, and arrested four others. A number of hotheads seemed inclined to rescue their mates from the lock-up, but wiser counsels prevailed, and eventually the crowds dispersed. The Western miners, by a 5 to 1 vote, decided against an "all out.” policy. “DASTARDLY, COWARDLY, AND INHUMAN” SEQUEL TO ASHTON DISORDERS. Newcastle, February 22. Of the 72 men who participated in the Ashton Fields Colliery disorders on January 10, when two men from that pit were molested, stripped naked, beaten, and pursued into the bush, 68 were convicted to-day by the Police Magistrate, Mr. Reed. The three ringleaders—A. Gazzel, Vincent Charlton, and Harry Deas —were each sentenced to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour. Five others were fined £lB, in default four mouths’ imprisonment.' The remainder, with two exceptions, were fined £B, in default two months’ imprisonment. The two exceptions, who had befriended the victims of the outrage, were fined £3. Thfe Magistrate described the conduct of the ringleaders as dastardly, cowardly, and inhuman. He said that it was hard to believe that such outrages could be committed in a civilised age.