WAR AGAINST MACHINERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11872, 25 January 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

WAR AGAINST MACHINERY.

ALARMING DEMONSTRATION BY BOOT OPERATIVES. Some of the shoe operatives in Northamptonshire are bitterly resenting the introduction of new machinery. At liaunds the men's objections to new shoe-lasting machinery have led to alarming demonstrations. The workmen say that the introduction of the new machinery will curtail the demand for hand labour and thus throw some of their number out of employment.

The result has been a determination to stand together and prevent the machinery being used. The news of the arrival of three machinists in the town consequently at once led to all the riveters and finishers at one of the largest factories, 200 in number, leaving work. Their leaders met the machinists on the way to the factory and induced them not to go there.

The crowd of strikers subscribed on the spot enough money to pay the return fare home of the three machinists, who accordingly departed. A mass meeting of operatives was afterwards held, a demonstration was arranged, and in the afternoon a procession of operatives, headed by the Raunds Band and with flags flying, paraded the town and made hostile demonstrations outside the factories.

One of the leading manufacturers, Mr. J. H. Nichols, on leaving his factory, was loudly hooted, and dirt and stones were thrown at him, but he drove rapidly through the crowd and escaped injury. A commercial traveller attempting to drive through the crowd, on reproving the rioters, also had a narrow escape. The workpeople have since definitely decided to come out on strike if the manufacturers persist in retaining the machinery,.