SOME FACTS ABOUT THE DOCK STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9539, 4 December 1889, Page 6

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE DOCK STRIKE.

A London correspondent writes :—"Great surprise prevails in London ab the extravagant cablegrams sent to Australia respecting the strike and the members engaged therein. The post and carmen made a great impression in Melbourne, but neither the post, nor the car-drivers, nor the carmen struck, or contemplated striking. Mr. Burns got on the weak side of the London reporters in the dull times for news, and made glaringly exaggerated speeches, which the London journals swallowed without inquiry. There was some talk of the carters and Patterson's carmen striking, and, according to Mr. Burns and his friends, the printers, the railway men, and nearly every branch of labour_ meant to revolt. But all this wild talk came to nothing, except to make a sensational cry. Tho numbers engaged in the strike formed the inoet prominent item in Mr. Burns' Hsb of exaggerations. One Melbourne newe agency put the number at 100,000, and 300,000 dependent on these persons. The same agency afterwards increased the number of strikers to 250,000. The following facts are tho result of specific inquiries : —The P. aud O. office decline to make an estimate, but, tho New Zealand Shipping office believes the number to be 30,000. Mfr. Morgan, of the dock house committee, estimates tho daily labourers at work at 7200, and 40,000 was the maximum of men professing to be on strike. Messrs. Shaw, Su.vill, and Co.'s office estimates from 30,000 to 40,000. Attb<j Orient office the dockers, stevedo-es, and lightermen on strike did not exceed 30,000, but the other trades in sympathy, viz., tailors, punters, coalmen, and firemen reached 30,000. Mr. Burns marshalled all the strikers that could get together in a procession, and gave special instructions for them to walk slow. Messrs. Shaw, Savill, and Co. had a staff of clerks counting these processions on variou.s days, and the result gave 24,000, 22,000, 26,000 2000, 20,000, and 28,000. The maximum of the countings by the Orient Company gave the number under 30,000. Mr. Burns is not coming to Australia. Mr. Tillettand other organisers of the shipping labour do not conceal their ill-will respecting Mr. Burns for coming in after the strike began, and they call htm the champion gas-bag. The champion, being the Burns of Socialist movements and Socialist doctrines, finds little sympathy among the old trade unions. At oue stage, when the funds wero all invested in one man's name, Mr. Burns had the wisdom to stop this, and to invest them in seven or eight names. Mr. W. Lund ono day last week, entertained a few friends to lunch on board the Bungaree. Mr. Lund's relation of his experience of the dock strike was entertaining and instructive. He had to get 4500 tons of cargo out by tbo employment of the officers and men connected with the fleet and clerks from hia ofiice. The work was accomplished in ten days. He paid every man engaged on the work 6a per day over and above his current salary, and tho total labour cost amounted, even on that high scale, to under £100. Tho charge of the Dock Company for the same labour would have been £200, in addition to £300 more for sundry charges, dues, etc., and yet tho companies cannot make both ends meet.