OLD CREW'S APPEAL

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 63, 17 March 1925, Page 5

OLD CREW'S APPEAL

DISMISSED AT PERTH.

(Received 17th March, 10 a.m.)

PERTH, This Day. The appeal of the seamen of the Volumnia against the sentence of imprisonment imposed on them was dismissed by the Chief Justice. In an interchange between counsel for the defence and the Bench his Honour remarked that he had heard' that the men intended to have the captain arrested. If the articles were not legal, as contended by counsel, the captain could leave the men stranded where he liked. The men could not blow hot and cold.

Ever since her arrival in Australian waters at Fremantlo tho Volumnia, a British ship, chartered by the Commonwealth Line, with a British crew at British rates, has been a source of unending trouble to Australia. Her,crew on the 27th October hist, allegedly at the instigation of officials of the Australian Seamen's Union, claimed Australian rates of pay, and, not getting them, refused duty. The men were subsequently sentenced to a term of imprisonment, and the general secretary of tho Seamen's Union, Tom Walsh, was subsequently fined £150' in. connection with this and other trouble at Fremantle. The Volumnia left Fremantle, manned with officers and apprentices, and gradually made her way to Sydney, where her captain was arrested for a breach of the Navigation Act. The Volumnia, has been "black" for six months.now, and the present is tho first attempt to work her cargo.