INDUSTRIAL AGITATORS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 83, 7 March 1945, Page 6

INDUSTRIAL AGITATORS

INTIMIDATION OF PASTORALISTo. (Rec. 1.50 p.m.) SYDNEY, Mar. 7. "‘A small body of Communist agitators is intimidating pastoral workers and organising a strike which will cause grave losses to the grazing industry,” said Sir Norman Kator in the Legislative Council. The speaker asked the Government to: allow- the police to investigate the record of agitators who were ioriienting the strike and to ask the manpower authorities to allow only genuine shearers to enrol as shearers. The strike had been in evidence m Queensland for a month, but had now spread to Northern New South Wales, where the militants, led by an Australian Workers’ Union organiser, had called at a station and urged the strike upon shearers. The shearers bad refused to listen, but several days later the militants had arrived with six cars to take the shearers away and had informed the men that accommodation bad been arranged for them and their fare paid. The shearers had reported that if they did not comply with the demand the woolshed would be burnt and they would suffer. Shearers were refusing to go out to stations •,because of the tear of molestatKf]ie Minister of Justice (Mr Downing-) said he felt that the majority of the men would rely on the advice of their leaders who, in the past, had always abided by arbitration. Every effort would lie made by the Government to prevent the strike from spreading.