AUSTRALIAN SHIPPING CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 134, 9 June 1919, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN SHIPPING CRISIS

REVIEWED BY JUDGE HIGGINS

ALLIANCE OF EXTREME GROUPS.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION. —COPXMBHT.) (Received June 9, 9 a.m.)

MELBOURNE, This Day.

The position created by the refusal of the Seamen's Union to take a ballot "on the question of resuming work pending arbitration was reviewed by Mr. Justice Higgins-in the Federal Arbitration Court. The Judge said he diagnosed the position as being that a few active and intelligent men had got control of the machinery of the union. Their minds were saturated with writings from outside countries, and they held a fixed theory that nothing substantial could be gained without extreme courses. There was a touch of irony in -'the counsels of desperation imported from abroad to Australia, which was struggling towards a better system for securing justice all round. As the result chiefly of the teachings of these overseas theorists, the two extreme parties in the industrial world—those who would push the claims of the workers regardless of the ruin inflicted on the comm unity, those who had bitterly opposed all" measures for the relief of the worker —had now become, allies. After enlarging upon the substantial concessions given the men under thgjjew log of April, Mr. Justice Higgins aeclared that he adhered to the policy that the xmion must not have arbitration and the strike too. If lie were to arbitrate and failed to grant all the men's leaders asked for, the men might not man the . ships.. He declined to act under such pressure. His hands must be free. Mr. Justice -Higgins added that the attitude of the 'men was : " Here are our claims. Will you grant them?" He could only say that if the employerjs granted the claims under sucti conditions they and the community would rue\ the day. Those favouring direct action would point to the gains thus achieved, and the same kind of 6tand-and-deliver demand would be made again and soon. ;