TRADES AND LABOUR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9380, 21 March 1892, Page 2

TRADES AND LABOUR.

THE.MINERS' STRIKE,

[By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. | (Special to Press Association-). London, March 18. (Received March 19, at 10.30 a.m.) The miners have agreed iv future to work five clays in the week.

March 19,

(Received March 20, at 6.10 p.m.)

The miners have agreed to suspend Mondays, beginning on April 9.

The Pall Mall Gazette asserts that thelosses of the men stopping amount to half a million, and that the costs to consumers will be greater, and alleges that middlemen and merchants will reap the benefit.

The Durham funds are sufficient for three months, and the federation is making a levy of L4OO per week.

STRIKE ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC. Ottawa, March 18. (Received March 1!), at noon.) The western employes of tho Canadian Pacific railway have struck for an increase of wages. They also demand that 100 men who were dismissed shall be reinstated. The Canadian Paciiic Railway Company assert that the strike has been incited by agitators in the United States. SEAMEN'S WAGES IN CASE OF WRECK. If a vessel is lost at sea and her crew is saved, when do the seamen's wages terminate ? Or, in other words, does the engagement between owner and seamen end with the wreck ; or, is it incumbent on the owner to pay his crew's wages up to the time of their arrival in a British port ? According^ the annual report of the North of England Freight Demurrage and Defence Association, four seamen belonging to the Woodhom (s.) decided to settle this fine point by actual experiment. The Woodhom was burnt and sunk at Skira, off the coast of Tunis, on the 4th July last. The officers and crew were the next day sent to England by the British Consul. Tho vessel was at once abandoned, and the owners paid the officers and crew wages up to the date of the wreck. All took that amount except the four seamen referred to, who claimed to be entitled to wages up to the date of their arrival in England, and afterwards up to the date of settlement. The owners tendered the four seamen wages up to date of the wreck, both at Malta and Liverpool, but they refused to take them, and commenced an action, which was tried in tho Admiralty Court in London on the 15th December. The president of the court dismissed the action with costs without calling on the owners' counsel for their defence, holding that the wreck absolutely terminated the services of the seamen, and that they were only entitled to wages up to the date of the wreck, which wages had been duly tendered to them by the owners. It may, therefore, be regarded as established that a shipwrecked crew can only claim wages up to the time of the wreck. But they are entitled to passage home at the expense of the Government, under the supervision of the consul.