WAITING FOB WALSH

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2339, 8 January 1926, Page 2

WAITING FOB WALSH

SEAMEN'S ANGRY WIVES. CASES OF GREAT SUFFERING. LONDON, December ,80. "The cablegram announcing that Tom Walsh will shortly be coming to Britain Is joyful news, because the seamen’s angry wives are forming vigilance committees at each port to deal with him," said Mr J. Havelock Wilson .president of the Seamen’s Union. "Probably they are waiting with the bouquets concealing brick*. I am going to sit back and watch the fun.” ! "The women Intend .putting some straight questions regarding the damage Walsh has done to their homes. Their husbands have not received strike pay. /They declare that they have suffered enough at. the hands of men like Walsh, and do not Intend to permit a repetition. Flora Drummond, who was nicknamed ‘General Drummond’ during her militant suf. fragettfe days, and now a hitter enemy of Communism, la organising the women.”

Mr Wilson added that last wsek the Seamen’s Union paid £BOOO to the exstrikers’ starving wives and children. “I cabled to Walsh to-day," he said, "reminding him that he had not replied to my week-end cable in Reference to that £BOOO. I pointed bui that If he had not the money to recoup us at Christmas ho might send it at New Tear, or bring it with him, The women are also preparing a reception for Mr. Lyddall, secretary ol the Sydney strikers’ committee, now on his way back to England by the Ormuz.”

Letters from the ex-strikers* wives, Mr Wilson continued, disclose-pitiful suffering. For instance, Mrs Cottam wrote: —“The (money you paid will enable me to buy mourning for my husband, Thomas Cottam, yfho was killed on December .15 by a train at Fremantle, after being 14 weeks on strike. He left England 111 April, (and r hacs been looking' ■forward to his return in January, But " now,!; ha will never return. We had been married only IS months." ’’ “The seamen's meeting in Sydney showed that Walsh Is departing; not a day too soon,” remarked Hr Wilson. “I have ample confirmation of the fact that British seamen are ! disgusted with their treatment by the Australian Seamen’s Union, especially the barring of them from employment oh Australian ships. “I am prepared to bet that Walsh will visit Russia. Recently I read a book, published tn Chicago. entitled "The Red Revolution of the Sea," wherein the author. Tom Barker, dec'.ared that Walsh’s name visa pass, port to anv part of Rum la. Barke-, who- is British, went from (Australia to the Argentine. “Walsh’s claim that his new union has 4000 members at Tilbury ts all nonsense. It has not 40 there. Tilbury refused to listen to the Communists during the strike.’ ’