KALGOORLIE QUIET

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21717, 5 February 1934, Page 9

KALGOORLIE QUIET

DECISION OF MINEKS BACK TO WORK TO-DAY FOREIGNERS REASSURED PITIFUL PLIGHT AFTER RIOTS By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received February 4, 5.5 p.m.) PERTH, Feb. 4 A message from Kalgoorlie states that everything is quiet ou the goldfields. The miners agreed at a mass meeting to return to work on Monday. They had received an assurance from the Chamber of Mines that unnaturalised foreigners would not be employed in the mines. However, the men's demands for preference to unionists was not granted. This has been consistently refused since 1919. The percentage of foreigners formerly employed in the mines was about io, but only about 5 per cent were unnaturalised.

A miners' meeting at Boulder City yesterday had resolved that British miners would not work in the Golden Mile (the name given to the mines there) with unnaturalised foreigners. The foreigners and their families who fled to the bush after the riots are now returning to Kalgoorlie and Boulder City. They appear to be confident as to their safety and are receiving aid from the police, charitable organisations and the municipal authorities. Normal trading will be resumed on Monday.

Pitiable stories are told by the refugees. Some of them, after the rioting, walked 20 miles not knowing where they were. In the daytime the temperature was 100 degrees. The men were without food and drink for 24 hours, and the women and children, of whom there were many, suffered terribly. Police patrols thoroughly scoured the bush and brought in all the women and children, but a number of the men refused at first to return. ITALIAN DEMAND PUNISHMENT OF RIOTERS NEWSPAPER'S PROTEST HOME, Feb. 2 La Tribuna protests against the riots in Western Australia. It says: "Australian trades unionism is so narrowminded that non-Australians are considered to be mere foreigners instead of fellow workers. Australian nationalism is following a narrow path, which means that an island as big as a continent is being closed to foreigners. " The colliers' declarations in favour of the prevention of a recurrence of rioting are not sufficient. Those responsible must be punished, reparations paid and guarantees given of the future safety of foreigners. "It is incredible that while the Singapore Naval Conference was planning the defence of Australia and New Zealand, which Japan desires to conquer, as an outlet for her surplus population, the Dominions should give way to xenophobia, thereby offending the feelings of European settlers and losing sight of the greater danger. " As a reward for their herculean efforts in colonising Queensland and other parts of the continent, Italians, have been forced to face the consequences of sectarian trades unionism.