THEY DECLARED IT "BLACK."

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10112, 20 October 1917, Page 4

THEY DECLARED IT "BLACK."

The strike was doomed" to failure from its inception, and, after two months of the useless struggle, Air Kavanagh, M.L.C., and other of the strike leaders, were forced to admit that unpalatable fact. The public was against the strikers from the .start, because it was recognised that the strike movement was really directed against the Government, by way of revenge for the Labour defeats in both the State and Federal elections. The strike leaders vainly endeavoured to enlist the sympathy of the people, but the crass'stupidity, which led them to declare everything' "black" that was conveyed over the railways of handled by the volunteer workers who rallied around the Government and endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to keep the wheels moving on the railways and tramwavs, and to maintain the food supplies' in the cities and towns, had quite a contrary effect to that intended by the strike leaders, and was remorselessly satirised. First coal was declared '"black," because it was used on the railways, and all good unionists were ordered not to handle it. That brought the gas works employees out, because "to handle 'black' coal would be an act of treachery towards other unions"; then, the gas works employees' being on strike, "no good unionist could be permitted to use gas for cooking or lighting," and anything employing electricity had to bo cut out to preserve the consistency ol the strike movement. Flour, meat, vegetables and fruit coming into town by the railways that were being run in defiance of the strikers, were also declared "black." A cartoon, published in one of the Sydney papers while the strike was in full swing, and everything handled by non-union labour was being declared '''black," hit off this absurdity very neatly. It represented a bury navvv and' his wife, seated at a table upon' which the cloth had been spread for dinner" But only empty plates and dishes confronted the hungry man, who. with his elbows on the table and holding a knife and fork in Ins uplifted hands, was scowling at his wile and saving: "Well, missus, where s the meat?" to which the wite was meekly replying: "We have none; you ve declared it 'black.' " The censor apparently intervened to prevent the publication of the man's subsequent remarks. The strikers, acting on the principle of declaring everything "black that , came into conflict with their ideas of ■ tilings, even went to the length of pro- . hibiting union nurses from attending . the wife of a volunteer worker in her ' confinement, and declared the corpse ot another woman—also the wite or a volunteer worker—"black." the undertaker's men refusing to handle the body ' or bury it.