CAUSES OF GENERAL STRIKE OF FRENCH SEAMEN.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 9, 1 November 1907, Page 13

CAUSES OF GENERAL STRIKE OF FRENCH SEAMEN.

On the 31st of May last tho seamen in all th-> more important French ports stopped work. The national committee of the Marine Union, which beside, the Federation in Marseilles, embraces also the local unions in DunTTk, Rouen. Havre. Nantes, SaintNazaire, Bordeaux, Cette, etc.,’ and also the Eui.m in Algiers, published on the 30tli of May in Marseillies a request to undertake a strike. This request mot everywhere immediate recognition.. The strike had a political character, although the causes were in some way of an economic nature. The strike was not directed against the employers, but against the bourgeois state, its government and its parliaments. Far the last 15 years the seamen have in vain struggled for a better and sufficient old age pension.

In order to understand the peculiar position of the French seamen towards • ho government we must remember that tho settlement of French marine affairs made at the time of Louis XIV. and Colbert, still exists in exactly tho same shape. According to that settlement or regulation, tho shipping and the fishing trade on French waters is reserved for the so-called “Insertfcs Maritimes,” that is to say, seamen who have put dowui their names on the marine lists, thus agreeing to be at the disposal of the government for the navy, in case of need, between thevr eighteenth and fiftieth years. In return they are entitled to a pension after 25 years at sea, and after having reached their fiftieth year the pension amounts to from 204 francs for seamen and fishers to 780 francs for first-class captains of tho mercantile marine. Tho lowest amount of pension for the widows was up to the present 192 frames, and the

orphan benefits amounted to 24 francs. The employers as well as the seamen pay a certain amount towards the Inval id Funds and the State pays an addition of 11 million francs per year. Although the antiro system lias often been blamed and considered oldfashioned during the last few' years, as a great many people think that it means an unjust preference of tho seamen to tho agricultural and industrial labourers, yet there is but one opinion in France—i.e., that tho seamen’s pensions, if'they are to be continued, are nowadays absolutely insufficient. The request of the inscribed seamen for a considerable increase : ri iho pensions was therefore well* received in Parliament and by the government, and caused the left-republi-can deputy fre- Havre, Jules Siegfried, to present a Bill which would increase the pensions from 204—730 francs to (00 francs fur the ordinary seamen and fishers, and tc 1300 francs for tht tliu first-class captains of the mercantile marine.

The government lias already proved, to the seamen by the law's of December 29 ch, 1,905, and of April 17th, 1 907, ty which the benefits and the invalid pensions and also the protccHn appliances were improved, that they appreciate, if not entirely, to a (eitai'i exte' t, the complaints mado by the seamen. But the government was not able to accept M. Siegfried’s Bill, and therefore instructed the Marino Minister, M. Thomson, to prepave and present to Parliament another Bill which was presented on May 23rd, and according to which the pensions were increased to 360 and 1000 francs, but the Bill provided, at tho same time, for an increase in the payments made by seamen towards the benefit funds For the sailors this payment wa3 even doubled, and the right- to tho pension was to start at the seventieth year. The government Bill provides further for an additional disability bonus for the captains of the mercantile marine, of 150 francs at the age of 60, a.nd of a further 100 francs at the age of seventy ; and for an addition of 120 francs for a five years’ State service, so that the whole pens; on for the first-class captains would amount, to 1370 francs, and for ordinary seamen and ‘sailors to 552 francs. Tho minimum pension for widow's would amount to 230 francs, according to M. Thomson’s Bill, and Hu- minimum allowance for orphans would be 43 francs

The whole Federation of the inscribed seamen of France has declared the amounts as contained in tlic government Bill as absolutely insufficient, and requests the withdrawal of the Thomson Bill in favour of the Siegfried Bill, In reply to the reproach made by M. Thomson that the seamen were ungrateful tow'ards the government, the strikers declared that the Invalid Fund introduced by Colbert for the inscribed seamen ought to contain at present three thousand million francs which, together with the interest of 90 million francs, would suffice to carry out the Segfried Bifl, without over-burdening the budget had not the government repeatedly and without right withdrawn from these funds considerable amounts which were used for other different purposese For T.stance Louis XV. drew front the fund six millions, the Convent 40 mil ions, tho first empire 80 millions, the Restoration 50 millions. It is sail that between 181.5 and 1870 not less than 152 millions have been paid as illegal pensions It has not iu-en proved yet as to whether everything lias been managed perfectly legally under the Thirl Republic. Anyhow, the seamen have every reason to insist upon having their Funds used for the purpose, they were intended for, and the pensions in proportion to what has been done by tho seamen

The effect of the strike movement was felt all the more because the move' incut embraced all the grades employed on vessels; the sailors, the captains, the engineors, the carpenters, and even the cooks and. the stewards of the passenge * steamers The dockers and teamsters undertook a strike in a few ports only, whereas the fishers have been on strike nearly everywhere.