CONFERENCE WITH .DIRECTORS.

Grey River Argus, 22 September 1910, Page 7

CONFERENCE WITH .DIRECTORS.

Immediately the four negotiators arose and left 'the hall. They . went straight to the board-room of the com pany, where the officials were in permanent session. At a auartar past nine the joint conference was resumed. . The result was the announcement; by the men's representatives at 11 p.m. • "We accept the terms .■arranged in the written offer of the general manager." These terms are in effect no .reprisals aginst he men who have strucfc and inquiry into' the case of Goodchild pending which his pay will go on as usual. Although they refused to follow tin?, advice of Mr Williams and Mr Hudson, M.P.. offered them at the Town Hall this morning the men gave them . a fair and patient hearing. It was urged that the company admitted mistakes and that the men should do the same. Although they defeated by! an loverwhelmdng proposal that the strige committee should be left to make the best terms thew could there was no molestation of the few who voted in its favour. They reaffirmed their demand that they and not the company should decide what work shunter Goodchild is to do. The decision was comunicated to the officials at the conference an the afternoon. Another discussion followed. ' "' Then came the mass meeting in the evening, with the resujt described. Mr Hudson was a passenger guard' in the company's service before he entered Parliament as Labour M.P. for Newcastle in 1906. The true inwardness of the Goodchild case has not yet been explained. It is difficult to get at the facts; for the men refuse to discuss the point.' Bu: here is the truth: ... \ ' Goodchild was instructed to leave the job he has held for twenty .years and to take up another at the opposite end of the Gateshead goods yard, for the simple reason that another man was wanted in his place. Th^ man's dignity was hurt, although his pay was uot affected, and he also fancied, as one of his mates put it' to me, that this might be "only an instalment of what was to come." He got general sympathy because most of the men : are afraid of the same thing happen,ing to them. The incident was seizon as a pretext to strike, because they thought that hey' had an opportunity to put and, end to the "speeding-up" process. I made inquiries to-day among a large number of business men as to the extent of the losses -inflicted upon trade and industry by the strike.

, It was chiefly coaX which was affected. A number, of pits had stopped

yesterday because they could get no trucks in which to load the coal. Eight collieries were idle around Durham alone. It was said that. 20,000 miners wer eperforce id.'Je, 5,000 Middlesboroug"h furnacemen, and 7,000 ironstone workers. I drove along the quays for some distance this afternoon and .' saw throngs of porters standing about with their hands in their pockets. There were vast piles •of merchandise of all kinds, heaped up just as it had been unloaded from ships' holds. The quays were becoming blocked with freight. Some of it was perishable. One angry agent pointed out to me a pyramid of crates— "confectionery, all spoilt." Fruit was scarce, so was milk". Flour, which' comes by rail from HulQ and Darlington, was running" short. The stae of a town dependent upon one railway company is well illustrated by the wretcHed fate of the flower show which opened here today. The tents presented a beggarly array of empty bencKes. The flowers which should be upon them couM not get through. The show was ruined -by the strike.