The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, January 12, 1928. AUSTRALIAN SHIPPING CRISIS.

Grey River Argus, 12 January 1928, Page 4

The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, January 12, 1928. AUSTRALIAN SHIPPING CRISIS.

In one significant way the press cables in reference to the present shipping trouble m Australia resemble those sent recently about thy equally widespread dispute upon I Im wharves there. Tim shipowners’ publicity campaign gets by far the greater prominence, whilst the case for the seamen is scarcely detailed at all. Thus it is alleged that last year saw vessels delayed on more than a. hundred occasions, through the seamen’s iault, and that the trouble now is solely due to the workers endeavouring to enforce job control. If the cables were, however, to record the number of men who last year were idled and the number of days pay which they lost through the hold-ups and lay-ups due to tlie shipowners’ decrees, there would be a very different complexion placed upon the present dispute. The truth seems to be that, the employers are acting together in an endeavour to dragoon their crews, relying, as of old, to enforce their will by the hunger weapon. In the first place they sacked no fewer than sixty stewards from I he liner Moreton Bay because the men objected to serving luncheons Io a committee on the occasion of a regatta, when the employers had offered them ext ra pay to do so. The stewards manifestly regarded regatta commil tees as over the odds, being neither passengers nor members of the ship’s complement. Even supposing that the stewards might have been expected to have I I stretclied a point and to have serv- ' ed the luncheons, to meet thei; refusal .with. the. sack jyas nothing

short of using the iron heel. When the Stewards’ Union went so far as offer a full complement of new stewards, they were met with a reply that it had been decided to lay the liner up for four months, and therefore her whole crew would have to go. When the seamen, seeing the significance of these two offensive measures,, called a stop-work meeting at Sydney, llie employers fined them all a couple of days’ pay, on the ground I hat the. time chosen for the meeting was not in accordance with the award. The only alternative bad been for the seamen io have held their meeting on a public holiday, 'whereas the seamen’s award distinctly provides lhat slop-work meetings shall, be held in the employers’ time. The cables suggest that the dispute should never have been allowed to grow to the present dimensions, threatening a general stoppage, bld the employers are most to blame because they have forced the issue by laying up one boat after another. The. tendency of the seamen now to make the struggle

general is doubtless dictated by the knowledge that the shipowners arc working together, and that I he press is predicting a ' 'fight to a finish.” There are quite a number of vessels already held up. and this is an attrition campaign on the owners’ pari. The Australian seaman is often accused of lieiug unreasonable because, while his conditions are better than those of nearly all other seamen, lie is militant. But for such rights as he has vindicated, what has h) to thank but his militancy t Dees the shipping ring anywhere in the world make its employees concessions out of a spirit of philanthropy ? The owners complain that there is a desire lor job-con-trol, but ask the public Io rega ri I wholesale sackings as something to which the men ought never to offer an object ion of such a nature that it will have any definite or appreciable effect. There have certainly been crews refused by the Unions for vessels, but so has there been a refusal —one. still persisted in—to redress the grievances as to the sackings of the stewards and the imposition of a monetary penalty for the stopwork meeting. When, therefore, I he cables show the seamen as being in. the wrong, and quote the shipowners to that effect, it is meet for the reading public to recollect. that there are two sides to it, and that the idling of steamers is the result of the owners’ policy deliberately designed to counter the men’s demand for redress. There is one obvious explanation of the owners’ militancy, and it is simply the Australian seamen’s solidarity. If the owner’s could, by starvation, or any other means, break that, they ; could defy the law, the tlovern- . merit, the public and everything else on the Australian ships as effectively as they have done nearly everywhere else in the world. Tliat is the underlying truth in lliis dispute.