SEAMEN AND STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 9

SEAMEN AND STRIKE.

PROTESTS BY WOMEN. A VERY LIVELY MEETING. A. and N.Z. LONDON, Jan. 7. Very lively scenes were witnessed at a women's meeting at Canning Town at which protests were made against flio recent seamen's strike. Many Communists and idle seamen were present. When the chairwoman, Miss Bowerman, an ex-suffragette, pleaded for "an industrial Locarno," the seamen sang; "Tell Me the Old, Old Story." When a motion was submitted protesting against outside tampering with the seamen's affairs, the disorderlies shouted, "Lies!" Two women stood up and attacked those on the platform. Soon pandemonium reigned. Union officials were shouted down. A body of women assembled beneath the platform and shouted their grievances. Captain Davies, a .trustee of the British Seamen and Firemen's Federation, obtained order. He declared that Mr. J. Havelock Wilson, president of the federation, was being vilified and crucified by inches, and described the men who called out the seamen as "either petty villains or fools." " The unionists in Australia," added Captain Davies, " made a levy upon themselves to the extent of five shillings a head in aid of the defendants and £3OOO was unofficially collected here. Did you get any of it?" (Loud chorus of noes!) The motion was carried, though there was a good deal of opposition. The passage protesting against Mr. Tom Walsh or any of his emissaries coming to England to stir up further strife was de-

lebed.