LABOUR IN REVOLT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCIV, Issue 14521, 17 August 1911, Page 5

LABOUR IN REVOLT.

RAILWAY MEN STRIKING. TRAIN SERVICES REDUCED. CITIES NEAR. STARVATION. Press Association—By Tel.—Copyright. LONDON, August 15. The train services at Crewe, Leicester, and other centres have been curtailed. Many transport workers at Binning'ham have struck. Others who have struck include the porters in the foods departments at Chester, Sheffield, Rotherham, Warrington, and Bristol, the shunters and dockers at Avonmouth, tho carmen at Bath and Bristol, the majority of the engine-driv-ers at Stockport, twelve hundred North British platelayers and surfacemen in the West of Scotland, fivo hundred railjraymen at the docks at Manchester, .and the Great Northern goodsonen and Great Northern and Midland vanmen. The Millers' Association at Liverpool declare that a serious bread famine is threatened at Liverpool and Birkenhead. A local merchant declares that Manchester is within three days of starvation, RIOTING IN LIVERPOOL. STILL CONTINUES. CONFLICT WITH MILITARY. After midnight a mob looted the shops in the Christian street district. The infantry fired -werhead and then made bayonet charges up dark' courts, whence they were assailed with stones and bottles. There were many casualties and two soldiers were grievously wounded. The soldiers at Liverpool, simply fired individual shots at houses from which missiles were thrown. Fifty-six arrests were made. Three thousand strikers attached a prison van convoyed by a hundred Hussars, who fired on. the crowd and used their sabres. One man was killed and twenty persons were wounded. GLASGOW TRAMWAYS. THE STRIKE GIVEN UP. There are signs of the Glasgow tramways strike fizzling out. Eighty men were arrested for rioting. The corporation committee, after a lively meeting, resolved to leave the j settlement of the strike in the hands of the tramway managers. A mass meeting of strikers received this decision with hostility and seek Board of Trade arbitration. The strike has collapsed, and many of the strikers are not being reinstated. LONDON QUIETER. Mr Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons, stated that the situation I m London had improved, and all sections of dockers wero returning to I work. He believed that the transport workers realised the advantages already secured, and the folly of jeopardising 'them.' ~ Work las been resumed at Paddington. I The Port of London authority offers to reinstate the strikers on probation. OFFICIAL CONFERENCE. ARRANGED FOR TO-DAY. The .Conference baween Mr Asquith and Mr Buxton at Downing Street today, included Sir Lloyd George, the Attorney-General, and Mr Askwiti, together with the large employers of the chief trades and leading representatives of labour, including Messrs Burt and Bowerman, members of the House of Commons. It was afterwards announced that a conference for Thursday had been, arranged by the Board of Trade, with representatives of the men employed in various branches of railway work. THE RAILWAYMEN, JOINT CONGRESS. GENERAL STRIKE THREATENED Received 9.55 p.m., August 16th. LONDON, August 16. A joint congress of the railway servants, locomotive engineers, firemen, signalmen, pointsmen and general workers' unions, met at Liverpool and considered the position. It was unanimously decided to give the railway companys twenty-four hours to negotiate a settlement, otherwise a general strike would be ordered on Thursday morning. The Congress also passed a resolution condemning the conipanjras' method of working the Conciliation scheme, the action of the police, and the employment of the military at Liverpool A general strike would involve 360,000 men. The passenger services are already becoming dislocated and goods traffic is at a standstill. FIGHTING IN LIVERPOOL TROOPS FIRE ON THE MOB. TWO MEN KILLED. Tho police report on yesterday's riot states that it was' purely an attack on j the police, in a district where disorder | is chronic and liable to outbursts in tmes of abnormal exoitement.

Five prison vans conveying sentenced rioters, and escorted by Hussars and Soots Greys, when traversing Vauxhall Road, inhahited by seamen and dockers, had their progress barred by an excited mob. Bricks and stones were hurled at the convoy from side streets and housetops: many were struck and six unseated. The crowd was so menacing that the convoy fired six shots. Prendergast, a carter, was shot dead, and Sutcliffe, a carter, died later, and three others with buffet wounds were takeji to the hospital. The Warwickshires and mounted police hurried to VauxhaU Road, meanwhile the vans had reached the prison.

The arrival of the infantry was the signal for desperate street fighting lasting an hour. The rioters faced the batons of the police with coolness and courage, and tie polios srece badly mawieA,

AT OTUKR CENTRES. A mob in Sheffield became turbulent to actual rioting. A provision carb was upset and some atone throwing took place. There are 25,000 idle in Manchester. Police escorting cotton from the docks to the mills were not molested. Distress in Bermondsey is acute, and relief rations are being distributed. TRADE IN LONDON. Business has partly been resumed in Tooley Street. Butter is very firm. Australian has nominally advanced 2s to 4s, but accurate quotations are impossible till conditions are normal.