UNPOPULAR FEDERATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15519, 29 January 1914, Page 8

UNPOPULAR FEDERATION.

REPENTANT EX-STRIKERS.

POSITION ON WEST COAST.

MR. WEBB REFUSED A HEARING.' [BY TELEGRAPH.OWN, CORRESPONDENT.] CHEiSTCHtmcH, Wednesday. There are many indications on'the West Coast that the workers learned a bitter lesson during the recent strike. When work was resumed there was no scarcity of workers, and the majority of the men gave the impression that they were heartily glad the strike was off, There is a very strong feeling in Greymouth against the Federation of Labour, or the Social Democrats, as they now prefer to be . called. Last week, Mr. P. C. Webb, member for Greymouth, received one of the biggest surprises of his life. He was refused a hearing by his own class, including many of the men who helped to put him into" Parliament. | Mr. Webb interviewed the president and secretary of the Greymouth' Waterside Workers' Union, and asked that he should be allowed to address the union. The question was submitted to the members, and by 100 votes to 2, the watersiders decided not to hear him. The new Waterside Workers' Union is largely composed of steady and settled workers with families, and they seem to be determined to do everything in their power to obliterate the federation element, as they hold that Mr. Webb, and his revolutionary followers have been the cause of the recent industrial upheavals. The membership of the new union totals 150, and a large number of members of the old union have joined. The whistle blew last Friday to start work at the Blackball mine under the Arbitration Act, and all the miners seemed very eager to get back to work. For eleven weeks some of them had declared against the bogus" union: they 7 ould leave,! or die, they declared, before'they would join any arbitration union. But when the new arbitration union was formed, they asked to be allowed to join it. It is stated, on good authority, that Mr. P. Hickey visited Runanga the other day, and received anything but a cordial welcome. A large number of the Runanga and Blackball workers are very sore over the late strike. They declare that they were led into the trouble by the strike leaders, and some of the men say .that it will take theifcjlind their families a year or more to get over the loss the strike entailed on them. Before the strike the drapers and storekeepers in the Grey district experienced a great demand for red ties, but since the collapse of the strike, red ties have been discarded. They are symbols which the Greymouth workers now no longer ask for.