ITALIAN WORKERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1928, Page 5

ITALIAN WORKERS

ADELAIDE ATTITUDE CRITICISED. (Australian Press Association.) (By Cable—Press As«n.— Copyiigtot.) LONDON, December 26. “The Times’s” Milan correspondent states: ‘Anglo-Saxon hyprocrisy, brutal insults, and the open violation of those principles of enlightened liberalism and of intelligent democracy of which English society is so proud,” are among the bittei’ opinions expressed by the papex* “Popolo d’ltalia” of the reported decision of the Port Adelaide authorities to debar any workers not knowing the English language from employment at the port. “The decision, may seem to have been dictated by practical considerations,” says the Italian paper, “but really it aims at protecting the British . workman against any otlxei’ nationality.” It adds: “In the history of the struggle, among the races, xxo measure so hateful, so anti-social, or .so inhuman has evex 1 been taken.” Italian workmen are the first to suffer, it says, but “those same Italian workmen were the first in Australia, in Africa and in America to open up unknown lands, and to lay down the fertile germs of the Mediterraneaxx civilisation.”

The “Popolo d’ltalia” concludes by expressing a feax’ that this English, or Australian, crusade against the Southern European workmen may be the beginning of a dispute reaching to vast proportions.

QUEENSLAND FRICTION. BRISBANE, December 27. Resentment prevails among the Italians at Innisfail, because of the removal of the coat of arms .from the front of the Italian Consulate there during the holidays. The Vice-Consul of Italy, Signor Luciano, in a statement to-day, describes it as an insult to the Italian nation; arousing a feeling similar- to that which would be experienced by Britons if somebody tore down the Union Jack and threw it in the gutter. He adds : It is time that such occurrences ended. He looked to the proper authorities to trace the guilty person.