MORE THREATS

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

MORE THREATS

FREE LABOURERS " KNOCKED OFF." Leaving the Navua tho contingent of strikers on the wharf rushed across to where the Queen of the South was lying afc the north inner tee. Here there was some obvious amateur free labour visible in some white-shirted youths and one or two shipping men unloading flax. These were soon the centre of a threatening crowd, which also swarmed on to the steamer's decks and thus hemmed ; the free labourers in. An altercation took place, with much use of violent , epithets, and just as hustling was coming near to open blows, a constable appeared, and a responsible member of the Strike Committee. A suspension of threatened hostilities followed, and then more policemen came. The member of the Strike Committee appealed from the bridge deck to the crowd to keep order, and when the wharfinger and the chairman of the Harbour Board came on the scene order was restored. The announcement was made, amid cheers, that if the strikers left the wharves, the free labourers on the Queen of the South would be knocked off. With this assurance and some individual persuasion by the officials of the Harbour Board the strikers, still breathing threats, left the wharf slowly and in little groups. / There was much increased vigilance on the .part of, the keepers of the gates, and in consequence there was a block in both ingoing and outgoing traffic. They were not prepared to risk another rush. WILD WITH EXCITEMENT. 1 Meanwhile, the crowd outside, some of whom were wild with excitement, began to stop laden carts and lorries. One prominent striker mounted a lorry and was preparing to urge strong measures to induce the drivers to come out when he was pulled down by his more prudent comrades. A carter coming in from the side tried to drive his horse through the dense packed throng and there was a stampede Some seized the 'reins and the horse swung round on its' haunches and the ' cart was run » to the side. The driver jumped down to the horse's head and managed to quieten it enough 'to get it out of the crowd again and drove it empty back to the stand. APPEAL FOR ORDER. There were all the elements of a serious riot now, with a thick jam of vehicles, trams, a steam wagon, and many lorries and expresses all in the j middle of a. big throng squeezed like sardines. Then a figure was seen | climbing the gates, and Mr. Curtice, tho chairman of the union, stood out on the top with a precarious hold on to the spikes. He called on the members of the union to keep order. He was as good a unionist as any man, but it was not like unionists to create a. disturbance like this before the ' gates. There were interruptions, but Mr. Uurtice pluckily went on. "CHANCE OF A SETTLEMENT." At the meeting in the morning, he said, they had had a chance,- and he put it to them fair and square that if they had not wanted -the executive to go on with the matter they could have"onted" them there and then. There was a chance of a settlement that afternoon, and they should not jeopardise ' it by disorder. Let every unionist stand firm to the resolution passed by the union that morning. (Hear, hear, and applause.) "If you do not get a settlement this afternoon," declared the speaker, "we can take other measures. (Applause.) But let the opportunity of settlement come first. If the settlement does not suit you the executive is not going to accept it. Any offer that may Be received will be put before the whole union for its acceptance or otherwise. (Applause.) In the meantime let us leave the gates and let the scabs work if they want to." Voices : "No, no! No scabs." With a final appeal for order Mr. Curtice got down, and comparative peace waa restored DORSET MEN STONED. Four free labourers working on the Dorset were pelted with stones by the strikers, but kept on with their operations in spite of a shower of missiles. Later in the day, however, they ceased work, and it is assumed that they were persuaded to do so by the pickets. MORE EXCITEMENT. At 3.15 p.m. the strikers made a rush at the double gates between M shed and the Harbour Board's building. Bursting open tho gates, they got a little way on to the wharves, but were then driven back by a force of ten policemen. Another section of the crowd made a rush at the gate further south, but were unsuccessful in their attempt to burst it open in order to get at ' the free labourers on tho Taviuni. When The Post went to press there was a good deal of clamour and excitement, but no further attempts to invade the wharf had been made.