SEAMEN'S CLAIMS. AN ATTEMPT AT CONCILIATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 34, 10 February 1908, Page 8

SEAMEN'S CLAIMS. AN ATTEMPT AT CONCILIATION.

Probably the Hon. J. A. Millar, Minister of Labour, will preside at tho Maritime Confprenco in Wellington towaids tho end of this month. The representatives of the shipowners desire to have tho Minister in the chair, and the delegates of the unions have no, objection to the proposal. The ch^tt of the assembly ia to iramo a modus vivendi for tho time that will follow tho expiry of tho award in April. Wlipii thife award was given at, Dunedin, tho unionists clamoured loudly against its provisions. Their complaint was that the court's verdict was against tho weight of evidence, and rumblings and grumblings echoed and re-echoed throughout New Zealand. The in mi spoke of cutting adrift from the. Arbitration Court, and there were' oven hints at a strike, though the leaders of the unions professed ignorance of any intention on tho part of the men to resort to such drastic means, to -settle their differences. It was stated that the men were bent upon paralysing t?.e shipping traffic as soon as ft promised to bo busiest with the oxhibiiion traffic, but nothing so desperate happened The claims of the workers ha^e been circulated among the shipowners, but thedetails are '■confidential" between the parties concerned.