A BITTER STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14934, 6 March 1912, Page 8

A BITTER STRIKE.

MASSACHUSETTS TEXTILE MILLS. CITY UNDER MARTIAL LAW, [from oua OWN correspondent.] San Francisco, February 7. The most bitterly-fought strike of the last few years in the United States is now being contested in Massachusetts, where about 30,000 employees of the textile mills are idle and seven large mills are either closed down or running part time. The town of Lawrence, where the trouble cen-* tres, is under martial law, two regiments of soldiers having been ordered there by the Governor of the State. Encounters between the strikers and the military have been frequent in the la§jgthree weeks, and; although the soldiers have in most instances dispersed the rioters by firing over their heads, there have been several fatali- i ties. The labour ' employed in the textile i mills of Massachusetts is mostly of the foreign class, and is poorly paid compared with the average of remuneration received by the working class in, America. It is computed that some 45 different nationalities are represented by the strikers, and daily speeches are heard in the streets in the English, Italian, Lithuanian, French, Belgian, and. Syrian tongues. The cause of the strike was the passage of a law by the State Legislature limiting the work hours of women and children in the mills to 54 per week. On a previous occasion the hours had been reduced by law from 1 58 to 56, and at that time the wages , were ' not reduced. The operatives expected the same thing would happen when another . two hours a week Were clipped off, but the millowners, who strongly opposed tho Bill, evinced their dissatisfaction when it became law by reducing wages proportionately with the reduction of hours Furthermore, although the law applies only to women and children, the millowners limited the working hours of men to 54, cutting down their wages too, contending that different sets of hours for different classes of labour was a virtual impossibility. The operatives were not informed until pay-day came round that the 54-hour week meant a 54-hour rate of pay. Coming, as I it did, unexpectedly, the information madI dened them, and they left work by the thousand. Mobs stormed the mills, 'injuring the property and those employees who still kept at work, and the police of Lawrence was quite inadequate to the maintenance of any semblance of order. The militia was ordered out, and then Governor Foss despatched twelve additional companies of infantry and two troops of cavalry to Lawrence. More than once the infuriated mobs were charged with > bayonets, but only two deaths thus occasioned have been reported. A just as effective method of keeping the violent mobs away from the mills, which they were bent on destroying, if possible, was turning the ] fire hose on them. The weather is bit- 1 terly cold at this time of the year, with snow on the ground and the river frozen r over. Streams of icy water proved as ir- J resistible as volleys of bullets. " Plants " ! of dynamite have been found in different p parts of the town, and there is no. doubt I that the strikers, or some of them, would ( gladly destroy the mills by explosion if they could. <