INDUSTRIAL WAR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11248, 11 April 1908, Page 2

INDUSTRIAL WAR.

The struggle m connection with the shipbuilding industry ' ; in Great Britain supplies some sbiocKing illustrations ox the horrors of industrial war. The trouble arose through, a serious shortage of orders. The employers iu-und that work was scarce, and thai profits were de.cnea.sing, and proceeded to reduce the number oi the hands ithey employed. Then, they demanded tliat toe. remaining employes should accept reductiosns m wages, and when the men. refused to agreo a, general "lock-ooit" was commenced, many of the yard's being •closed down altogether. • Starvation faced huiiidreds of families at once. "Thousands of men, women and children, are literally starving m Simderland to-day," wrote a correspondent of tlie D«ily Express oil February 17. "Many (families are living on the pennies earned by cliildi-en who' sell papers and. matches m the streets. Last night I , was taken, into a one-roomed home, where goma- of tlie faimiture had been sold, all the little articles pawned, the week's, 'relief food 1 eaten, and no food remained. In one bare attic a man and wife eat with a bit of bread for Sunday, , In another •one-roomed home a woman, .lay m bed with her weelc^okl baby. The nuwband sat by the tire with four little ones round; him. There was not a. scrap of any kind of food m tlie place. For 'three days after the baby was bom tlie. mother lisul only, tea and bits of bread which, her neighbors gave her. There was one bedi lor the' man and. wife and five children. In another one-roomed home a : man and! wife and eight children Avere packed. They 4 were living on 'the tickets'— three' sliillirjgs' wortlii of {md a week. . Jn, most, cases only two tickets are given to a family — two shillings' worth of food for seven days. .WJiat dto tliey eat? In another home a weeping woman held m her arms a. dying -child. Tlie workless father hM been sent to gaol for the crime of theft. The rest of tile little family sat round the fire, iaitently and 1 sormw fully watching the .youngest die." Ifc was estimated that there were at least 10,000 men out of employment m Sunderland alone, and the trotible extended to the whole northr east coast. Authority was assuring the men so- vitally concerned that their position was the result of unavoidable natural conditions, but the assurance, could bring no comfort to their starving bodies and broken hearts.