AFRICAN STRIKE FIASCO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15504, 10 January 1914, Page 7

AFRICAN STRIKE FIASCO.

RAILWAYMEN LUKEWARM. TRAINS RUN AS USUAL. BURGHERS HELD READY. AMMUNITION FOR TROOPS. GOVERNMENT DETERMINED. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received January 9, 10.20 p.m.) Capetown, January 9. In response to tho call for a general strike the men of the railway workshops at Pretoria and Johannesburg have ceased work, but none of the other men have come out. The trains are running as usual. Of the 400 men who at first went on strike at the Braamfontein workshops, I*6B fitters have resumed work. The Labour leaders admit that the strike so far has been a fiasco. Several sections of the railways are balloting whether or not to strike, tho sparsity of their funds acting as a deterrent. The leaders predict that the strike will be in full swing in four days. General Smuts, addressing a special constable corp& yesterday, hoped to prevent bloodshed, but held that the strikers must be fought. There might be greater calamities than those of July, as the Government was determined to fight and punish the- agitators. Railwaymen in every part of Cape Colony have sent the managers an assurance that they have no intention of striking. The Government, it is stated, had arranged to call out the burghers to guard the Rand mines and protect property. The gunsmiths' stocks of revolvers at Johannesburg have been sold out during the last few weeks, and residents have been laying in food supplies in anticipation of a strike. The troops at Potchefstrom and Pretoria were held in readiness. It is reported that 500,000 rounds of ammunition have arrived at Johannesburg.