SHIPPING IN AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19156, 23 October 1925, Page 11

SHIPPING IN AUSTRALIA.

IRRITATION TACTICS.

STRIKERS AT VARIOUS PORTS. FREE LABOUR OFFERING. By Telegraph—Press Association- —Copyright. (Received 10.35 p.m.) A. and N.Z. SYDNEY. Oct. 22, The agents of the British Shipping Companies at Melbourne state that they have received satisfactory response to their invitation for a limited number of men to man ships which are to sail for ports outside Australia. The police were on duty outside the shipping offices which the strikers had picketed, but no attempts were made to interfere with the men who applied for work. Owing to the strike the steamer Diogenes from England, which was to have called at Melbourne, will come direct to Sydney. The firemen on the steamer Ceramic have joined the strikers. ' Many of the striking seamen at Adelaide have registered at the Government Labour Bureau there for employment ashore. The crew of the steamer Westmoreland has joined the strikers. The Strike Committee at Brisbane has declared all British ships in that .port "black," and has decided that they shall not be supplied with coal. Farmers throughout Queensland are offering to man the ships should the owners call for volunteers. When the crew of the steamer Palmer, which is owned by John Burke, Limited, learned that the ship was loaded with coal for the refrigerating plant on the steamer Port Hardy, anchored in Whit Sunday Passage, they refused to take the ship to sea. A non-union crew was obtained. The Brisbane branch of the Seamen's Union thereupon declared all the Burke line vessels "black." The firemen on the steamer Barrabool repudiated their agreement with the owners and refused to continue to maintain the refrigerating plant. The engineers and officers took over their duties in order to keep the plant working. An attempt to unload a portion of the refrigerated cargo from the steamer Orsova at Fremantic was prevented by the wharf labourers refusing to work the vessel, as the seamen had declared her derricks and cargo "black.'' QUARREL AT MEETING. LEADERS' VARYING VIEWS. ADVICE FOR BRITISH MEN. A. and N.Z. SYDNEY. Oct. 22. The Sydney Morning Herald confirms the fact that a quarrel occurred yesterday at the meeting of the Australian Seamen's Union. The paper says the meeting was held in response to a requisition from a number of the members led by the assistant secretary of the New South Wales branch, Jacob Johnson. The latter submitted a motion demanding that the British seamen should be asked to refrain from submitting their claims to the Arbitration Court. The motion also deplored the action of Tom Walsh, president of the union, in advising the strikers to go to the Court. It made a threat that the Australian seamen would withdraw all their support from the strikers if they continued to resort to arbitration. After a lengthy and heated debate the motion was overwhelmingly defeated and the meeting decided to continue to support the strikers.