SIX MONTHS' GAOL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 55, 14 September 1928, Page 9

SIX MONTHS' GAOL

FOR JACOB JOHANNSEN AUSTRALAN UNION BOSS (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY,, 31st August. All the litigation that Jacob Johannsen, or Johnson as he calls himself nowadays, has been involved in in the past few years culminated in his being sentenced to six months' imprisonment on Tuesday. Johannsen is general secretary of the Federated Seamen's Union of Australia, and the charge against him was that he had, between 18th June and 27th Juno last, attempted, by spoken intimidation, to induce the crew of the steamer Barwon to leave their employment. Tho sentence apparently came as a heavy blow to this stormy petrel of tho waterfront. He was clearly disturbed, and his counsel hurriedly gave notice of appeal and applied for bail, which was granted. Johannsen is having a troublous time. His feud with Tom Walsh, who is opposed to tho militant tactics of his colleague, threatens to end in the eclipse of Johannsen. Yet these two wore bosom pals a few years ago. They were comrades in arms, brave generals leading the working men, and seldom wore they nervous in the faco of capitalism. Direct action was the watchword, but, significantly, when the men went on strike and suffered, the salaries of their officials did not stop. However, they were great friends and remain so until they wore lodged at Garden Island in 192G pending the High Court decision whether they wero to bo deported or not. They were fellows in adversity, but it is stated that they were so long in each other's company that they contracted a violent aversion which has now developed into a singuarly bitter enmity. This Johannsen who was charged and sentenced on Tuesday appeared to be a different man from the one who so nonchalantly answered chargos of holding up the Levuka, and later of failing to send in his income tax returns, and still later appeared pugnaciously before the Deportation Board. The Magistrato (Mr. M'Mahou) was particularly severe in his strictures, especially in referring to the credibility of the seamen's leader. Mr. M'Mahon said that it was universally accepted in Australia that a man who took the place of a man on strike was a scab. The seamen on tho two steamers iv question were regarded by tho Sydney Union as scabs, although not by the Adelaide branch. When asked whether he had regarded the men as scabs or called them scabs, Johannsen replied in the negative. Was that an honest answer? Meetings were convened, in Sydney, at which resolutions were carried which placed the seamen at work in the position of scabs, and were specifically intended to get them out of tho ships. The case, said Mr. M'Mahon, die. not resolve itself into a trial of the defendant's politics but of his honesty. In tho sanctuary of the Domain he had proclaimed that he was a revolutionary, but when asked what he meant he said that he meant to work by constitutional means—a negation of revolution. Was that explanation honest? Mr. M'Mahon's conclusion was a serious indictment of irresponsible union bosses, who, whilst in a safe and lucrative position themselves, involvo the workers in untold hardships. "The seriousness of offences of this sort," he said, "cannot be exaggerated. Strikes have a boomerang effect and react most on those who engage in them, and on their wives and children, to whom they bring untold misery. We all sympathise with these unfortunates. Thoy look to the officials, whom they appoint to guido them, and tho officials of unions have a great public trust reposed in them." "The workers of Australia," ho said, "believe that a day is dawning when this drastic method of settling differences will be discarded. Ono is puzzled to find tho reason for these kind of disputes, and one wonders if they are not the result of a fanatical hostility of one class of persons. for another section of the community." And so Mr. Jacob Johannsen is in a difficult predicament. His position as secretary to the seamen is in dofinito joapardy, and his outlook is further clouded by the fact that he will certainly have to go to gaol unless his appeal succeeds.