MORE INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES

Southland Times, Issue 25501, 23 October 1944, Page 5

MORE INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES

Sydney Faces Meatless

Days

SYDNEY, October 21.

Sydney continues to be in the throes of industrial upheavals. Today the city faces a meatless weekend, which is likely to extend into an indefinite number of meatless days. At midnight tomorrow it will be confronted by a 24-hour stoppage of most of its transport outside of the State-owned services. This one-day transport strike will further affect Sydney’s food position since there will be no carriage of fruit and vegetables to the city markets on Monday. Most butcher shops, which are shut today, are expected to remain closed at least until the end of next week. A mass meeting of meat industry employees has decided not to handle meat for civilian consumption. The workers will kill only for export to the armed forces and the essential services. More than 10,000 workers in Sydney’s transport and meat industries will be idle from midnight tomorrow until noon on Monday. This evidence of the rapid deterioration in public morale and national unity manifested in the recent industrial troubles, coupled with the flagrant disregard by organized unionism for the laws of the land, must cause grave concern to thoughtful citizens,” declares The Sydney Morning Herald today. The paper, which is reappearing after a fortnight of suspended publication because of the printing industry dispute, continues: “They must view equally seriously as a threat to the very foundations of democracy the passive condonation or active support of illegalities by Ministers of the Crown. No Government action or threat of action has been announced. The national security regulations apparently mean nothing on those occasions, when they could legitimately be used against _ a politically potent group. The community must view with mounting perturbation and distrust Governments which tolerate flamboyant lawlessness and remain inactive and silent—except when such Ministers as Mr Calwell and Mr Ward speak to encourage the lawbreakers—in times of industrial crisis.”