ON THE WHARVES

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

ON THE WHARVES

PICKETS AND POLICE SOME DISORDERLY STRIKERS. , Up to lunch time, at any rate, the strikers have kept good order on the wharves. A fairly close scrutiny was exercised at the gates, nevertheless some of the pickets got through and found their way at times to the sides of ships working. Early in the day there was no disorder — nothing in the behaviour of the pickets to which exception could be taken. They looked afc, saw, and said nothing, or next to nothing. At dinner time to-day a tally clerk excited the anger of the crowd outside the wharf gates by working at cargo. When he knocked off for dinner a rush was made at the gates, and the crowd surged past the keepers and chased the tally clerk. He ran for shelter into F Shed, but before the shed could be closed the crowd swept in and demanded the removal of the man from the wharf. The wharfinger (Captain Munro) was present, together with the police, but he would listen to nothing until the crowd left the wharf. This it did, and the tally clerk, who was driven into a corner, was got away off the wharf. The union officials openly exhort the men to keep order, and so far they have been listened to, but occasionally individuals take matters into their own hands. " I know how to stop a strike," boasted a man in the vicinity of the Taviuni yesterday. "Do you?" said a bystander; "stop this one, then!" and he knocked the speaker down. There have been a few similar incidents, t but they are the result of individual direct action. A youthful member of the staff of one of the shipping offices, who took advantage of the opportunity to earn some ' extra pocket money last evening, complained of having been assaulted by a watersider when on his way home from the, wharf. , Pickets have been posted at various points near the gates, and they have instructions from those over them what to do, and it \is understood that those instructions involve nothing that may be construed into committing a breach of the peace, nothing, it seems, but to watch and use such moral suasion as shall be sufficient to turn men away from accepting work. The police are exercising much tact and reasonableness, and tip to the present no arrests have been made and little or no cause has been given for the police to do more than to prevent collections of men on the wharveß (where they can get in) and . to keep the crowd moving where traffic on the footpath or on the road is likely to be impeded.