SIX MONTHS’ GAOL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3888, 18 September 1928, Page 74

SIX MONTHS’ GAOL.

FOR JACOB JOHANNSEN. AUSTRALIAN UNION BOSS. {From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 31. All the litigation that Jacob Johannsen, or Johnson, as he calls himself nowadays, has been involved in in the past few years culminated in his being sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on Tuesday. Johannsen, whose antecedents are rather mysterious, is general secretary of the Federated Seamen’s Union of Australia, and the charge against him was that he had, between June 18 and June 27 last, attempted, by spoken intimidation, to induce the crew of the steamer Barwon to leave their employment. The sentence apparently came as a heavy blow to this stormy petrel of the waterfront. He was clearly disturbed, and his counsel hurriedly gave notice of appeal, and applied for‘bail, which was • - granted. Johannsen is having a troublous time. His feud with Tom Walsh, who is opposed to the militant tactics of his colleague, threatens to end in the eclipse of Johannsen. Yet these two were bosom pals a few years ago. They were comrades in arms, brave generals leading the working men, and seldom were tbev nervous in the face of capitalism. Direct action was the watchword, but, significantly, when the men went on strike and suffered, the salaries of their officials did not stop. However, they were great friends, and remained so until they were lodged at Garden Island in 192 G pending the High Court decision whether they were to be deported or not. They were follows in adversity, but it is stated that they were so long in each other’s company that they contracted a violent aversion which has now developed into a singularly bitter enmity. This Johannsen, who was charged and sentenced on Tuesday, appeared to be a different man from the one who so nonchalently answered charges of holding up the Levuka, and, later, of failing to send in his income tax returns, and, still later, appeared pugnaciously before the Deportation Board.

The magistrate, Mr M’Mahon, was particularly severe in his strictures, especially in referring to the credibility of the seamen’s leader. Mr M’Mahon said that it was universally accepted in Australia that a man who took the place of a man on strike was a scab. The seamen on the two steamers in question were regarded by the Sydney Union as scabs, although not by the Adelaide branch. When asked whether he had regarded the men as scabs or called them scabs •Tohannsen replied in the negative. Was that an honest answer? Meetings were convened in'Sydney at which resolutions were carried which placed the seamen at work in the position of scabs and'-were specifically intended to get them out of the ships. The case, said Mr M’Mahon, did not resolve itself into a trial of the defendant’s politics but of his honesty. In the sanctuary of the Domain he had proclaimed that he was g. revolutionary, but when asked what he meant he said that he meant to work by constitutional means —a negation of revolution. Was that explanation honest? Mr M'Mahon’s conclusion was a serious indictment of irresponsible union bosses, who, whilst in a safe and lucrative position themselves, involve the workers in untold hardships. “ The seriousness of offences of this sort,” he said, “cannot be exaggerated. “ Strikes have a boomerang effect and react most on those who engage in them, and on their wives and children, to whom they bring untold misery. We all sympathise with these unfortunates. They look to the officials, whom they appoint to guide them, and the officials of unions have a great public trust reposed in them. “ The workers of Australia,” he said, “ believe that a day is dawning when this drastic method of settling differences will be discarded. One is puzzled to find the reason for these kind of disputes and one wonders if they are not the result of a fanatical hostility of one class of persons lor another section of the community.” And so Mr Jacob Johannsen is in a diflftult predicament. His position as secretary to the seamen is in definite jeopardy and his - outlook is further clouded by the fact that he will certainly have~to go to gaol unless his appeal sue* ceeds.