SOUTH ISLAND DRIVERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17456, 28 April 1920, Page 7

SOUTH ISLAND DRIVERS.

MAY STRIKE IN SYMPATHY.

NOT ANXIOUS TO JOBS,

[by telegraph.—own- CORKESPO.NDE.VT.] OHRISTCHURCH, Tuesday.

Although the South Island enginedrivers are not very strongly disposed I to go out on strike on their own initiative ■ the opinion is held very strongly in railwaymen's circles that if the Northern I locomotive men go out the Southern men i will strike sympathetically. This much ' can be taken for granted, and the important question is whether a temporary service could be improvised in such a contingency. To this question an emphatic " no" was returned by one of the rank and file of railwaymen, a man who could be depended on to gauge the temper of the men.

The possibility of running the main Southern .passenger trains was admitted, but an assurance was given that nothing further could be attempted, as there were far too few drivers and firemen available at the present moment, and it was very difficult to get the main trains awav to time as it was. Old hands among * the drivers,' the railwayman stated, were in depot jobs, and the younger men were not particular whether they stayed in the job or not. An instance was mentioned where three men only receiving notice of their transfer .to the North Island to relieve the very acute shortage there, threw up their jobs at once rather than leave Christchurch. In this case they were entitled to draw the total amount of their payments into the superannuation fund, as would be the case with the men who went on strike.