THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1922. JOB CONTROL OF SHIPPING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18511, 23 March 1922, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1922. JOB CONTROL OF SHIPPING.

Fob some time past the Australian Seamen’s Union has been obsessed by the idea of “job control” of the ships registered in the Commonwealth. When the shipowners made it clear that persist- . ence in the demand would precipitate a crisis the leaders of the movement retreated. Another controversy of quite a different character in its possible effects is at present occupying the attention of the Federal Government. It is one which is fraught with far-reaching possibilities. The Government owns and operates the Commonwealth Line of steamships, but the Seamen’s Union is making an endeavour to control the ships. Large British shipping interests h|ive been making overtures for the purchase of the Commonwealth Line, but until recently their proposals have been promptly rejected. The last offer to buy, which emanated from Lord Inchcape, chairman of directors of the P. and 0. Company, was, however, not regarded by the Government as unworthy of notice. It is even now under consideration. The Government no longer felt it necessary to ignore any proposals for the acquisition of its fleet. A changed attitude of mind has been forced upon it. This may be directly attributed to the demand of the Seamen’s Union to dictate the terms on which the ships shall be manned and to name the men who shall man them. Mr Hughes, as Prime Minister, refuses to tolerate this demand. It has been suggested that if the union attempts to insist upon the adoption of its policy the Government will be compelled to sell the ships. This would have the effect of changing the domicile of the vessels, which would be registered in Great Britaih, where the laws are not so favourable to seamen as in Australia. The result would be comparable to the death of the goose which lays the golden eggs. The executive of the Seamen’s Union has on former occasions, however, injured the men whom it misleads, and it is not at all likely to profit by past mistakes. Furthermore it is apparently opposed to helping British seamen. The recent case of the Largs Bay furnishes an interesting illustration of this. The Largs Bay was brought to Australia by British seamen. On her arrival the union informed the authorities of the Commonwealth Line that a new crew would have to be engaged through the union’s rooms. The authorities ignored the request, and the union thereupon sent a full crew down to the ship for engagement. This was designed to prevent the captain from “picking and choosing” seamen. The first man nominated by the union was presented as ‘bosun. On the captain remonstrating, he was told that if he insisted on making his own selection he would not get a crew. It is not an uncommon experience of masters of vessels even under present conditions that they have to wait the convenience of certain dilatory members of their crews before their vessels could sail. If the union were to man the ships the masters would, it is to be feared, be placed in an invidious and impossible position. Mr Hughes regards this conduct on the part of the union as an intolerable use of the “big stick,” and he very naturally resents it. The Merchant Service Guild has pointed the obvious moral of this line of coercion, and has expressed its apprehensiveness lest, if the Seamen’s Union continues its policy, the Commonwealth Line and “the great principles on which the line was founded ” may be “ jeopardised.” Mr Walsh, secretary of the Seamen’s Union, lays stress on what he declares to be the necessity for appointing “’Australian” crews on Commonwealth ships. The “Australian” crew may really, however, be a queer mixture. Speaking to an Australian Workers’ Union Convention he declared that the Seamen’s Union was a body with “no national or racial barriers,” and Chinamen—even 200GL of them—would be admitted if they applied for bona fide membership. Some of the men who were ordered to displace the'British crew on the Largs Bay were at least of doubtful Australian origin, but this apparent shortcoming is presumably more than counterbalanced by the fact of their membership of Mr Walsh’s union.

The National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union of Great Britain is seriously aggrieved at the treatment of its members and has pointed out that the British I union freely. admits Australian seamen under a reciprocity agreement. This phase of the matter will doubtless be further ventilated, but the immediately important point is that of the future control of the Commonwealth Line. If the taxpayers of Australia are expected to continue to provide ships, some of which have already, on the authority of Mr Hughes, been built “at a price much in excess of tbe market rate,” in order that the Seamen’s Union may experiment with Syndicalism, they are entitled to ho informed of the fact. Their decision in such a case may be foreseen. When shipping was in short supply the Commonwealth Line, in common with others, was a profitable enterprise, but the keen competition of the present and the future opens up a new vista. If the Seamen’s Union continues to place impossible demands before the authorities controlling the Commonwealth ships the contingency feared by the Merchant Service Guild will certainly arise. A serious aspect of the attitude of the Seamen’s Union towards the State line of ships consists in the effect it may be expected to have on Australian shipbuilding. If the Commonwealth Line is destroyed the shipyards will suffer. Present appearances suggest that those

in power in Australian unionism apparently believe it to bo impossible to got anything better until everything is very much worse. That is just what M. Lenin believed when he experimented with the men and women of Russia with results which are now as widely known as they are universally viewed with abhorrence. The threat of a great strike, directed to an effort to wrest the control of industry from the employers, affords some idea of the spirit of “ class-con-sciousness ” with which some of the labour “ bosses ” are striving to imhue their followers.