MELBOURNE STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18708, 14 May 1924, Page 12

MELBOURNE STRIKE.

MP 1 ■ ■ MANY TRAM LINES SOLE, HOSTILITY TO POLICEMEN. AFTERMATH OF THE MUTINY [FROM OUR own CORRESPONDENT. ] I SYDNEY. May 8. : The strike of tramway employees in Melbourne, which has paralysed la large ; portion of the city's tramway system, is the direct outcome of.' the discontent; amongst all .Melbourne unionists a a result of i the utter defeat of the participants in the : recent police strike, or mutiny, as the ; authorities prefer to call it. The Government stood firmly to. its determination not to re-engage the men ' who > had ; ; refused duty, and months of agitation, pleading, and threatening found . them \ unmoved from their • 'determination to : make the affair a'- grim warning that Constitutional methods, .- and no others, must :be employed by such a body as the police force. Naturally, the chief sufferers from - the chagrin of these unionists who sympathised with the police, who thus lost their positions, were men who had ' enlisted for special duty during'the mutiny.' Tha special force employed during ' the ,• crisis far outnumbered that which ' would be required for the . permanent reconstruction of the force; consequently many men who served were bound later to seek other employment. It so happens that the man oyer whom the present trouble' has arisen did not actually serve, but merely en-' I listed, and was rejected on. physical grounds. He had succeeded in obtaining a promise of employment in the tramways, and the -gripman whose duty it was to instruct him ascertained the fact of his enlistment, and obstinately refused , to instruct him. This the authorities could not countenance, and they dismissed 'the gripman. . Immediately the whole of the employees on a large section of the system struck.

J At the time of waiting there is absolutely no sign of settlement, there being all the elements of a, prolonged struggle, in which all the bitterness engendered by the result of the police- mutiny will find expression." It is considered that this action of the men, in bringing the disgraceful results of the police mutiny, when Melbourne was ridden with' lawlessness and violence, so vividly before the public "'again,': at a 'time when an early election is almost inevitable, owing to the divisions between the Country Party and the Nationalists in the State, will greatly mar the chances of Victorian Labour of repeating the successes of the party in South Australia and Western Australia. V The feeling against the police which the present strike has revived has»found expression ,in A several ugly scenes, individuals. and -groups of policemen taunted, and even molested, -by crowds of idle men. On one occasion a small body of • policemen, enormously outnumbered, was chased, the pursuers cjnly desisting when one of the policemen turned an fired a blank shot with his revolver.