FATAL STRIKE RIOT IN CANADA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13355, 8 December 1906, Page 5

FATAL STRIKE RIOT IN CANADA.

TWO MEN KILLED, 12 WOUNDED.

Two men were killed and a dozen wounded at-Buckingham, near Quebec, Canada, on October S, in a conflict between striking mill-, hands and provincial police, at MacLaren's sawmill ,; The drastic measures - taken by. the authorities to quell the riotous strikers had a felling effect and no further trouble was expected. ' \ '

The. doiid: were: President Belanger, of the Mill Workers' Union, leader of the strikers; he was 30 years old and; married. Xavier Elieriu, a mill-hand, leaves' a widow and five children. Five of the wounded men were in a serious condition.

The f-triko at tho mills began on September .15. The workman's strike fund and their ■small savings had vanished and they had begun to feel the pinch of hunger and cold. „ Tho announcement made that the millowners would import labour and start the mills pat the men in a desperate frame of mind.

■A meeting was called, at which incendiary speeches wore made. About the middle of the afternoon the men decided to clear out the {strike-breakers. A mob .of 200 men, armed with revolvers and other weapons, rushed up the hill leading to the mills. Tho irullowners, who had looked for violence,, had posted 40 detectives and special policemen on the outskirts of their property. There ira s no parleying. The first rush of the strikers was met by a volley from the revolvers in the hands of the police. Belanger, who was leading the mob, fell at the first volley, with two bullets in his. head. He died vhere he fell. The strikers sought shelter and opened fire on the police, many of whom were hit.

A desultory fusillade was kept up for fifteen 'minutes, the strikers standing thenground snd the police remaining . behind their hastily-constructed barricades. It was apparently by mutual consent that hostilities were suspended while both sides removed their wounded.

As there appeared to be a likelihood of a renewal: of the trouble an -appeal was sent to Ottawa for, troops. They arrived at night, and went into camp neas the lumber yards. Alexander and Albert MacLaren. members of the firm, fought beside the police in the battle with, the strikers. •. Tho strikers declared they would elect another leader and continue the strike. Their former wages of Idol. 25c. a day, they declared, would not keep them and their families alive. . . : .