INDUSTRIAL UNREST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15384, 22 February 1912, Page 7

INDUSTRIAL UNREST

BRITISH MINING DISPUTE. THE OWNERS' TERMS. FRUITLESS CONFERENCE, RUSE FOR STOCKS OF COAL. 81 EN NOT ANXIOUS TO STRIKE. Prcaj Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, February 20. The owners nf English coal mines at the Conciliation Hoard submitted the conditions whereon they aie prepared to accept the proposal of a minimum wage, but the miners rejected it. The conference then broke up. Merchants and householders and railways and Government depots have been staring coal heavily (hiring the past, month. Many householders are using their bathrooms for this purpose. Consumers in Liverpool are panicstricken, and are inundating merchants with orders. Tlio railways are cutting down tho supplies to waiting rooms and offices to one-third. Mr Strakor, secretary of the Northumberland Miners' Association, says lie is so confident of the justice of the men's caso that ho is willing to allow Sir G. R. Askwitli to act as umpire. The men arc not, itching for a strike. ACTION BY MR ASQUITII. SEPARATE CONFERENCES PROPOSED. LONDON, February 20. Tlio Primo "Minister has invited the owners and the miners' representatives lo meet him ami some, of his colleagues at tho Foreign Ofiicc separately on Thursday to consider means to avert the threatened coal strike. OWNERS' PROPOSALS, i LONDON, February 21. (Received Feb. 21, at 10.10 p.m.) Tlio English coal-owners' scheme proposes a minimum of 7s ljd per day for abnormal place* and 6s ljd for other places. It is understood that, tho miners' •iverago is more than 6d ditrerencc between the two rates daily. Tim Chronicle stales .that ono stiggeflted settlement is that the minimum wago Ik given a three months' trial, the Slate l»earing any extra cost to tho coalowners. SUPPLIES FOR GIBRALTAR. • ORDERED IN AMERICA. LONDON, Februaiy 21. (Received Fell. 21, at 11.25 p.m.) The Admiralty has ordered 10,000 tons of American steam coal tor Gibraltar. NOTICE 1 OF A LOCK-OUT. POSITION IN LANCASHIRE. LONDON, February 20. Hundreds of large employers in Lancashire havo given provisional notices jvffccting 15,000 glasfanakers, ironworkers, mid engineers. GLASGOW DOCKERS' STRIKE. ARBITRATION" AGREED TO. LONDON, February 20. Sir G. R. Askwith has persuaded the Glasgow masters and dockers to arbitrate on the interpretation to bo placed on the recent agreement. THE BRISBANE STRIKE. DETERMINED STRUGGLE. BRISBANE, February 21. Tito strike leader (Mr Coyne), addressing 1500 men, declared that the. strike . would continuo until the employers had reached a better frame of mind. The fltriigglc, ho said, must result in their victory. A meeting of tho Rosewood colliers decided to return to work. A meeting at Ruudamba decided to approach tlio Government with a view to getting the local Arbitration Court, to deal with tlio re-employment of the llrishano strikers. MR COYNE STILL TIOPEI'TJL. SEAMEN PROSECUTED. BRISBANE, February 21. (Received Feb. 21, at 9.15 p.m.) Mr Coyne, addressing the strikers, said that unlives tlio Employers' Federation was .more stupid than ho thought it was the end was not far distant. The employers were losing thousands, but the strikers were losing nothing. They were not hungry yet, and were not likely lo be for some time. In the Police Court the owners of the steamer Tiuana proceeded against, tlio boatswain for refusing duty. The case is a test one, the whole of the crew having struck. The magistrate said the crew appeared to havo two captains on land. Ono set, took the law into their own hands and refused to obey the sea captnin. Counsel for the complainants said the men were the ill-advised victims of people ashore. The company diil not desire thnt the men should be imprisoned. A fine of £2 with exists, with the alternative of seven days' imprisonment, was impsrd. The other cases were adjourned till Friday. SHIPPING DELAYED. SYDNEY, February 21. (Received Feb. 22, at 0.55 a.m.) The Arawotla is still held up. The wharf lalioiirers refused to handlo the steamer M'allinu's cargo, but the permanent bands are. handling it. The trouble on the steamer Cornwall lias been settled, and coaling is proceeding. STRIKE AT GLEBE ISLAND. SLAUGTITKRMKX DISSATISFIED. SYDNEY, February 21. Thirty-eight slaughtermen at Glebe Island struck, as they object to the system of gnulin? men. ROAD MAKERS OX STRIKE. SYDNEY, February 21, A gang of roadtnakcrs struck at Kosciusko. Mr Griffith, the Minister .it" 1/abour, gave instructions that they he! paid off. Ife staled that the Govern. | ment would recognise a strike only when i ordered by the union. COMING COAL STRIKE. NATION'S NEW PERIL. (Fi'OM Oi'R Onx CoiMissroxnKXT.) LONDON, .lanu.iry 10. It is idle to deny that lite country is now threatened with a new and grave ( peril in the shape of a coal strike. March i 1 is the dale given by the men before | which the employers must concede their i demands on the minimum wage question, j The owners emphatically contend that the I South Wales agreement of 1910 has three ! more years to run. and that it prevent® | anv such demand being made. Rv the side of a coal strike the in- | dtnlrial troubles of last year— dockers end railwaymon—are trifling. Over a million colliers will stop work at once, hundreds of thousands in other iednstries will he forced into idleness, and the commercial life of the country will be at i standstill in a few weeks after March I 1. The men apparently are ignoring the advieeof their older leaders, and there is no disposition to refer the matter to arbitration, though, in this respect, the

attiludo of the masters is not hopeful Sir George Askwilii, tho peacemaker, is now ncgotiat ini; in the cot lon <in<l weaving dispute iu Lancashire, where the unionists refuse to work with nonunionists, mul for some months now he. has no sooner settled ono dispute than lie has been called in ;«£ arbitrator in another. One wonders what lias become of the Industrial Aibitnition Council which the Government appointed some Months hark'. INDUSTRIES PARALYSED. A well-informed correspondent paints a fjloomy picture. lie, saysl have spent Homo days in tlio North of England, anil J have no hesitation in saving thai the answer of the miners will lie practically unanimous in favour of a national strike. This it; the opinion of every man who should know what the i-ollie.rs are thinking and talking about." The colliers are being asked: "Are you in favour of giving notice to establish the principle of a minimum wage for every man and Imy working underground iu the mines of Great Britain?" The result will lie declared next week, and the latest dale at which "any coal mine will be working will be March 1. lint there is the gravest danger that I lie country will not lie allowed even this short, breathing space before it is railed upon to see all its industries paralysed, ami millions of its people idle and faced with starvation or something worse. If, as is everywhere anticipated, the majority is overwhelmingly in favour of a strike, it is quite on the cards that the hotheads aiming the leaders mav bring about a stampede, and that the miners will not wait, to work out their notices. WHAT Till': MINERS 1) I'M AND. The miners arc asking that every man who goes down a. mine shall be guaranteed a minimum wage. Minora work by piecework, and consequently this demand is for pay irrespective of the amount of coal got by the miner. At first the demand was for some method of scouring a wage for a miner working in a place where, owing to a.' geological fault or a bad root or bad coal, ho could not earn a day's pay at the ordinary rate paid for hewing. That was matter for negotiation, and there is no doubt that some such arrangement, might have been sccnred by negotiation. But this policy diil not, suit the newer men who have lately come to the front on tho councils of the Miners' Federation, They liavo been carried off their feet hy the wave of "syndicalism" which has'bctjii passing over the country during the past few months. They 'wanted a general stoppage, and they have succeeded in involving the question of payment for abnormal places in the wider ipiestion of a national minimum wage for all men. The. consequence of a national coal strike would be so disastrous that one can scarcely paint them in 100 dark colours. It- is estimated (hat one month would completely exhaust every ton of available coal. ARBITRATION REFUSED. In Smith Wales there is no likelihood of another meeting of the Coal Concilia, tion Itoard being called, and nothing but war seems to be in store. Speaking yesterday at Cardiff, Mr 1). A. Thomas, head of the Cambrian Combine, said it had been suggested that the coalowners did not realise the gravity of the situation. This was not so. He had called attention to it publicly two or three n unit lis ago, and had advanced peace by means nl compromise, lint his efforts had been set aside, and now he had to fall iu with the rank and file of coalowners ,aml take off his coat for a fight. .Mr Hartshorn, one of the miners' leaders, did not think that the struggle would last long; but ho (Mr Thomas) feared it would last much longer than a few weeks. It- was very easy to excite the passions, but the (lilliculty was to check them. "1 would say," added Mr Thomas, "'hands off, btisyhodics. We are going to manage our own affairs, and we are quite competent to do it.' My efforts for peace have been rejected and ignored, and now 1 am going to lake off mv coat and give loyal support to the employers, and we are going to win." Mr Thomas went on to say that Ihe masters had been forced into it, and it w.-w a. case of touch one, touch all. Ife did not, think it. would be advisable even for the Hoard of Trade to interfere, nor need they expect much hope from the intervention of the Industrial Council^ CONSUMERS' PLANS. London coal merchants and those directly interested are busily preening fur eventualities should the threatened national coal strike really occur. Largo consumers of coal, such as electric power stations, factories, and big manufacturing concerns, have already laid in extensive slocks, and railway Voinpanios have prepared for the worst by filling their various depots and sidings'throughout Ihe country. " Hut 1 do not think it, will last very long,' 1 remarked one prominent merchant, " ll would be such an enormous th Jig, ami would dislocate trade so calamitously, throughout the whole of the country, that 1 do not think it could possibly last longer than three or four days. Colliery managers 101 l us I hat the chief centres of unrest are South Wales and Northumberland. while the Midland collieries are perfectly satisfied with their present conditions. llut, the strike otico declared, all would, of course, follow suit," Coal stocks for hotiseneld consumption cannot at any time, owing to the limited facilities available for storage purpose# in London, be very large. At the present rate of consumption stocks in tendon would" not last more than a week. If a.strike were divlared there would be ail immediate advance of 2s to 3s per ton all round, and if it lasted more than a week or so it would he practienllv impossible lo quote prices at all, as'there would he no ronl to sell. General prices are higher at the moment than at Iho correspond im; period of last year. They show an increase of about Is per lon on all grades 'I his increase was primarily due to the enormous demand in October last consequent upon the threatened strike, and the fear of a strike has keot prices up ever since, combined with the fact that trade generally lias been exceedingly good. MEAT WORKS STRIKE. SETTLEMENT AM! TV ED AT. (I'm United Passu Assoeunos.f WELLINGTON, February 21. A satisfactory settlement of the meat workers' strike has heen arrived at, and the Gear Meal Company's and the Wellington Meat Export Company's works at I'etone and Ngahatiranga should be iu full swing again ou Mondav. An agreement lias been come to between the parties, and a committee reiiieseiiling twill sides will draft the terms into a form of iml list rial agreement which will be submitted to both sides for ratification to morrow. All the main points iu regard to wages were settled on Tnesday. the conference to day discussing ; general conditions and preference to unionists. Although the preference clause submitted by the men was not adopted as it stood, a satisfactory compromise was arrived at. preference being granted to all casual workers. The terms are that the men must join the union within 14 daw of receiving employment. Another condition is thai the union shall register under the Arbitration Art. The terms will >he drawn up iu- the form of an industrial agreement, with a currency of three years. The full terms arrived at will not he dis closed until to-morrow, but they aresaid to be ahead of any other agreement at present iu force in the industry in the Pomininn. At the conclusion of the conference S"eechf« ,<vere made by the representative.; <<f Imlii sides. Mr P. Hallv (Conciliation Commissioner), who acted as chairman, heir- heartily thanked for his efforts at mediation.

GREYMOUTH WHARF LABOURERS. (From Otm Own CouitrsroNiinsT.l GREYMOUTH, Fcbruaty 21.' In regard to the dispute concerning the conditions of employment on the Greymouth wharf, a request has been made to the general manager of the Union Steam Ship Company, ,'wking him to meet, the executive of the Federation of Labour and the Greynmnth Wharf Labourers' Union in conference ou the subject. So far no reply lias been received lo the commnnication.