INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3619, 24 July 1923, Page 19

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

THE DOCKERS STRIKE. LONDON, July 16. Owing to there being no strike money or unemployment pay the dockers in London are slowly drifting back to work. The situation has also improved because tlie shipping companies aie using their permanent staffs to shift the cargoes. The Hull dockers, however, continue solid against the restarting of the work. July 17. In connection with the dock strike the crew of the Hurunui, who were proceeding to the Victoria and Albert Dock to unload the vessel, met a large crowd of excited strikers, who refused to allow the sailors to pass the dock gates. An encounter was imminent, when a body of police arrived, and the trouble was averted by the officials of the Port of London Authority intimating that it would be useless to attempt to unload the Hurunui, because the warehouses were mostly full and were not available for storing goods. In connection with the dock strike, the landing of fruit from overseas vessels is being seriously interfered with by the strikers’ methods of intimidation. The Thames presents a remarkable sight. There are hundreds of idle ships at anchor. Several have been ordered to go to sea and pitch rotting cargoes overboard. The carters last night were offered £5 for every load of fruit cleared. Three drivers who ventured were severely handled, and their carts were overturned. A crowd stopped a lorry laden with beef in Commercial road, East End, and began to help themselves. The police drew their truncheons and cleared the street, the crowd stampeding. One policeman was injured by a stone thrown during the melee. July 18. There has been a serious extension of the dock strike on Merseyside. Several thousand men struck at Liverpool, and the working of the Atlantic liners and deep-sea cargo boats has been stopped. Coastal and cross-Channel services have been suspended. The foreign fruit trade at Covent Garden and the meat trade at Smithfield are practically at a standstill. Owing to the strikers’ intimidation of the carmen, it was found necessary to close the Floral Hall, Covent Garden, where . imported fruit is auctioned. Already large quantities of Continental soft fruits have been rendered unfit for consumption, due to slow discharge at the London docks; therefore thousands of packages are being discharged at Folkstone and despatched to London. There has been further trouble at Liverpool. The strikers induced 200 dockers on three vessels to cease work, alleging that one vessel from Australia had been diverted from Manchester, but the owners state that they merely followed the usual custom when a vessel bound for Manchester arrived late by docking her at Liverpool. July 19. As the Manchester dockers refuse to allow the unloading of fruit which is rotting in the docks the directors of the Ship Canal Company contemplate calling for free labour. Tlie porters at Smithfield market, by 103< votes to 66, decided to support the strike by remaining out of work, but many porters refrained from voting. Meanwhile the shopkeepers’ clerks and salesmen at Smithfield are carrying the meat. The Covent Garden porters deny intimidation, but they admit that when a man attempted to work to-day he was stripped naked and sent home in a cab for his pains. Extra police are being sent to the large food distributing centres. END IN SIGHT. LONDON, July 20. The Smithfield meat workers overwhelmingly decided to resume work immediately. The Liverpool dockers have resumed, and the Manchester workers have decided to resume on Monday. UNION PRESIDENT DEFIED. OTTAWA, July 19. Four thousand Cape Breton miners voted in favour of a continuance of the strike in defiance of the order of Mr Leas, president of the United Mine Workers’ Union, which cancelled the district charter and instructed the strikers to resume work. THE COAL SETTLEMENT. SYDNEY, July 18. The Council of the Coal Miners’ "Federation has ratified the terms of the settlement of the noitliern dispute, and the miners will shortly resume work. FREEZING WORKS DISPUTE. WELLINGTON, July 18. The freezing works dispute was before the Conciliation Council to-day. The employers, as the applicants, submitted the same wages as before. The workers’ representatives argued that the wages were insufficient, owing to the discontinuous nature of the employment. The last wages cut imposed in the North Island had not been made in the south.

A Fokker monoplane has remained in the air continuously for 36hr stnin 20sec, and covered 2541 miles. 'This is a record. British M.P.’s and their guests ate 42 breakfasts, 23,772 luncheons, 36J241 dinners, and 73,870 teas in the refreshment rooms at the House of Commons last year. Gas attacks as a means of overcoming an enemy are recorded as far back as 189 8.C., when jars were filled with feathers, which were set alight, the smoke being blown with bellows into the faces of the foe.