WATERSIDE STRIKE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 100, 24 October 1913, Page 8

WATERSIDE STRIKE

ASSUMES A GRAVER ASPECT STRIKERS OUT OF HAND QUEEN'S WHARF INVADED. FREE LABOURERS ATTACKED. SERIOUS MELEES. The waterside -workers' strike assumed % graver aspect to-day. The fine weather brought out the men in full strength, and a crowd of some 1500 or 1600 assembled in Post Office-square and ita, precincts, and perambulated the ,Tvharveß on 'which -they were admitted. tAt the Queen's Wharf entrance a large Jbody of police and Harbour Board , officials kept guard, and the gates were 'kept shut as much as the ceaseless stream of vehicular and pedestrian .traffic would permit. In the morning there were no serious developments, no strikers whatever being allowed on the main wharf. Later in the day there were signs of growing uneasiness, and the crisis came when a determined effort was made to rush the gate." The police were unable to quell the invaders, who swept down the wharf and clambered on to the Navua, where a serious melee took place, one of the foremen stevedores being badly injured through being hit on the head with a broken bottle. On other vessels the free labourers were 'subjected to a trying tune, and the demeanour of the strike has completely changed. A conference between repre- | <6entatives of the parties has been in progress, and the developments arising ■out of it are anxiously awaited.