RESENTFUL WATERSIDERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15548, 4 March 1914, Page 10

RESENTFUL WATERSIDERS

QUARREL WITH "SPECIALS."

GRASS-SEEDING INCIDENTS.

» Chwstchubch, Tuesday. The bad feeling that was aroused among the Iyttelton' wharf labourers against the special police during the late strike has been much in evidence during the past few weeks on » Banks peninsula. The prospects .of good wages to be earned in grass-seeding operations, compared "with the uncertainty of employment on the waterfront attracted many watersiders to the fields, and some hundreds have been absent from the port on this account. Many of the men who" acted as " specials' were -drawn from the country, and on occasions when- they met the ex-strikers the latter have riot been letfl to show their enmity. .- - » "<« , It is, reported that' much trouble has been experienced by farmers during the cocksfoot harvest by the watersiders refusing to work beside the others. One party of watersMers, it is said,' secured an engagement with a farmer under the usual conditions- - A' number of ex- " specials" had also been engaged, and when it became known to the watersiders they told the farmer that if he wished to retain \ their services he would have to dispense with those of the former. "" He refused, and the men left in a body. i Similar cases are reported from other parts of the peninsula. -