THE STRIKE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 January 1925, Page 5

THE STRIKE

TOU&ISTS IN TASMANIA. DESPERATE PLIGHT. The tourists held up by the shipping strike comprise all classes, from business men to clerks, and typists, teachers, and artisans. Many of them, unable to get back to the mainland to resume their occupations. at the proper time, know already that they have lost their jobs, and will carry bitter memories of their Tasmanian holiday which ended in tragedy. Some, not overburdened with this world’s goods, have come to the end of their financial resources, and are in sore straits, having to borrow money or rely on the kindness of the hotel or boardinghouse-keepers to feed them and keep a roof over their heads. Many pitiable cases have teen revealed. A widow from Melbourne, after working hard for years, saved sufficient money to give her delicate daughter and herself a long-anticipated holiday in Tasmania. They arrived soon after Christmas, and were revelling in the delightful change when the shipping upheaval came. To-day the mother has lost her job, and her hard-earned savings are rapidly becom. ing exhausted. A girl, after nursing her invalid mother on the mainland, was herself taken ill, and the doctor ordered her to Tasmania for a rest and a change. She did not want to leave her mother,i but was prevailed upon to do so. She had only been there three days when she received a telegram to say that her mother had taken a turn for the worse, and wasn’t expected to get better. The girl was. naturally, frantic, but has been unable to get away, and now she has received a further message to say her mother is sinking fast. Two cousins were to have been married in the same Sydney church, hut owing to the hold-up of the Zealandia they could not get back. A number of seamen stranded in Tasmania offered to work their passages on the small cargo steamers trading between Hobart and the mainland, but the crews on the vessels intimated to the captains that if these men were taken on they would leave the ships. For the hotel and boardinghousekeepers, motor transport firms, and others, who cater for the tourists, the season, which originally promised to bo a record one, has been irretrievably ruined.

Every day brings phoals of cancellations of accommodation from peorde who cannot get over from the mainland. ~~

As jf their troubles were not bad enough, the hotel and bonrdinnhnuso proprietor!! have been server] with a new log bv their employees’ union, in which a minimum wave of about five rniineas a week is claimed for potato peelers.