WAR TO THE KNIFE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1909, Page 7

WAR TO THE KNIFE.

FRENCH POSTMEN. ANOTHER STRIKE IMMINENT. OTHER BRANCHES LIKELY) TO JOIN. By Telegraph.— Press Association.—Copjrlßht PARIS, 11th May. The Federal Committee of the postal employees has placarded Paris with an appeal to Parliament to dismiss M. Simyan, otherwise it will be a war to the knife. It is expected a strike will be declared to-night. The General Labour Federation is planning a triple strike of railwayman, electricians, and postal employees. The strike which occurred in March, and which lasted a week, was alleged to be the result of oppressive, tyrannical regulations. While it lasted it caused a complete breakdown of the postal service, at one time there being 5,000,000 letters and 275,000 telegrams undelivered in Paris alone. If the strike had continued, the people in the city were threatened with a famine, owing to supplies being cut off by the small cultivators, through the non-receipt of their remittances. Soldiers and others were called upon to fill the places of the strikers, who numbered eight thousand. On 23rd March the strikers returned to duty, having obtained virtually everything they had asked for; except the dismissal of M. Simyan, Under-Secre-tary for Posts and Telegraphs, a demand which M. Clemenceau, the P-e-mier, firmly refused to ' entertain. One of the conditions of the settlement was that no one should be dismissed for having take« part in the agitation. At a Cabinet Council, held on 25th March, however, it was decided, according to the Paris correspondent of the Daily Mail, to dismiss the authors of a placard headed "Merei '" ("Thank you") issued by the Postal Servants' Union on the 24th. This poster asserted (hat the strike was caused by the malevolence, rudeness, and domineering attitude of M. Simyan, Undersecretary for Posts and Telegraphs, and declared that the strikers no longer recognised him as their chief. The Cabinet also resolved to deduct from the postal servants' salaries the amount of their pay during the period in which they were on strike. They considered, too, the advisability of rewarding the employees who did not abandon their work. Exasperated by these measures, the leaders of the strike movement immediately held a secret session, at the close of which the representatives of the three organisations forming the Postal Servants' Union stated that they accepted full responsibility for the incriminating placaid, and intended to wait upon the chief of the Ataff at the Rue de Grenelle to inform him of their attitude. It was also resolved, in view of the "menaces" of the. Cabinet, immediately to reconstitute the strike committees. MM. Lamarque and Pauron, two piominent leaders of the agitation, declared that if a second strike became necessary the postal employees would be supported by all the trade federations, and a general labour strike would be decreed. The dismissal of a single postal employee would, trio labour leaders affirm, be the signal for a revolutionary agitation embracing the entire proletariat. The leaders of the \inion naving declared thep would await the result of the debate in the Chamber before deciding whether they would order a fresh strike, the sitting was awaited with ' feverish impatience. M. Clemenceau, the Premier, despite the fact that he i 3 just recovering from a severe attack of influenza, was in his best fighting mood as he mounted the tribune. "There is," he said, "one concession we cannot make to the strikers — postal servants shall not arrogate to themselves the right to overthrow ii Minister." He and his colleagues, he said, would not purchase peace by handing over the authority of Parliament. Of the six resolutions before the President, M. Clemenceau declared that the only motion the Cabinet would accept was one deciding that the Chamber make a decree regulating the advancement of State servants and formally denying them the right to strike. After a heated debate, the Chamber passed a vote of confidence in the Government by 341 votes to 237. • The strike committee decided to take no steps towards ordering a fresh postal strike until the Government proceeds to put its "menaces" into force. During the agitation, telegraph wires were cut in many places, and left hanging from the poles. At a point near Fontainebleau, thirty-nine separate wires run by the side of the railway. Among them is the wire connected with all the signal-boxes, along which the signallers receive the notification of the passing of trains. An unknown man, by climbing a telegraph pole, was able to cut the signal wire and connect it with two other wires. The result was that the signal "line clear" stood unaltered in the signal-boxes for several hours. It is considered to be nothing short of a miracle that disastrous collisions did not occur before the damage was discovered. After that had been done, trains were only allowed to travel at foot-pace until the commanication was restored.