Strikes Spread Like Wildfire.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16762, 31 January 1918, Page 5

Strikes Spread Like Wildfire.

Renter's correspondent at Zurich says the strikes in Austria and Hungary are spreading like wildfire. A general strike began at Buda Pesth, the capital of Hungary, on the morning of January 18. All the railway, tramway, and underground services stopped. In the afternoon 31 meetings were held in different parts to discuss the shortage of food. Shops were closed, and the public was not allowed in the streets after 6 p.m. The -Arbeiter Zeitung, the organ of the German Socialists in Vienna, publishes a manifesto warning the Government that the working classes can only be pacified if they are assured that peace negotiations will not bo frustrated through territorial demands. The Labourites also insist on being consulted in the negotiations. Speaking in the Hungarian Diet, the Prime Minister, Dr. Wekerle, stated that the Government, and also tha Emperor, adhered to the principle of peace without annexations and without indemnities. With unwonted outspokenness, which, perhaps, accounts for the vitriolic comments of German newspapers regarding the situation, the Arbeiter Zeitung says: " After 40 months of war and privations hopes of peace appeared. Then from Brest Litovsk came General Hoffmann's sabre-rattling speech. The masses fear a peace which depends on the militarists of Berlin. Normal conditions will only be resumed when the Government has shown that it has heard the voice of Labour and speedily concludes peace." The fact that the Austrian censor has allowed this to be published seems to indicate that the Austrian Government is not altogether displeased with the Labour rising. Vorwarts, the , German Socialist organ, states that five mass meetings at Vienna passed a unanimous resolution to the effect that "Labour demands, with passionate resoluteness, a general peace," and protesting against the systematic misinterpretation by the entire bourgeois press of the recent speeches by Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson. Vorwarts adds that the debates in the Lower House indicate that the resolution is supported not only by Labour, but also by the mass of the bourgeois.