OUR COASTAL SHIPPING.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 221, 4 October 1906, Page 2

OUR COASTAL SHIPPING.

DISAFFECTION AMONG THE MEN. THE UNION AND~THE ARBITRATION COURT. [press association.] WELLINGTON, Oct. 3. Rumours have been current that a strike among the firemen and seamen of coastal vessels for higher wages is imminent. Mr Kennedy, the local manager of the U.S.S.. Coy., declares that he has heard nothing of it, nor has anything happened to lead him to believe that the rumours are reliable. Mr Jones, the Secretary of the Federated Seamen's Union, speaks to the same effect. "If the men," said Mr Jones, "have any liioyenient in mind, they are engineering it entirely by themselves. By going out on strike hi.the way suggested, the men would be cutting, adrift from the authority of the 'Union. With regard to discontent," resumed Mr Jones, " that is general; I won't attempt to disguise it. We have in our mind an idea very much talked about and discussed in our meetings—the idea of leaving the Conciliation and Arbitration Act severely alone, and cancelling our registration when the proper time arrives. We know that cancellation during the currency of an award does not exempt the Union from liability, but we think that as a body the Seamen's Union has been before the Arbitration Court for the last time." Mr Jones then submitted that in Australia, where competition was keener in every way, firemen and seamen had been granted an increase in wages without having recouse to the Court, though an Arbitration Act existed. Diplomacy had secured for those men a benefit which New Zealanders had failed to secure after eleven years oi' battling. •