DIRECT ACTION THREAT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20309, 7 January 1936, Page 6

DIRECT ACTION THREAT.

As if to answer the plain unequivocal statement of the Federal Attorney-General that the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia is not likely to be intimidated by the threats of direct actionists, whether seamen or miners, two dramatic developments have taken place in the shipping dispute in Australia. In Sydney, a mass meeting of seamen, with only two dissentients decided to call out crews of vessels under the jurisdiction of the Union. It is stated that the decision of the seamen was prompted by a determination to cooperate fully with the mining unions, who are strong for a general hold-up of shipping until the seamen licensing system has been withdrawn. Pending the decision of the miners on Wednesday, it is a little difficult to see the direction the strike may take. It is stated, however, that the miners will undertake to remain on strike until the Transport Workers Act and the licensing regulation have been withdrawn. The decision of the Seamens Union and the miners constitutes not merely a plain ultimatum to the shipowners. On the contrary, the calling out of the seamen engaged on all vessels under the Union’s jurisdiction, and the miners’ palpable threat to throw in their lot with the striking seamen constitutes a definite challenge to the forces of law and order, which the Federal Government dare not ignore. Many weeks ago, the Sydney lenders of the seamen urged the men to return to work pending an early application to the Arbitration Court for a variation of the offending clauses of the award. But the men rejected their

secretary’s good counsel and spurned his appeal to the men not to be led away by extravagant statements, which could only bring disaster to the members of the Union:

“I am warning you now you are not fighting the shipowners; you are fighting the Commonwealth Government,” said Mr Johnson, general secretary of the Seamen’s Union (who was subsequently deposed) at a mass meeting of men early in December. “I would be a coward if I did not put the facts fairly in front of you as I have always done. When you are fighting Governments you must remember that not so long ago there were 7,000,000 Communists in Germany. You do not hear much of those 7,000,000 now. They have just been wiped off the map. That is what happens when you go against the Government. The promise that the Labour Council would support you is not worth the paper it is written on. Most of the delegates have no mandates to commit their organisations. In any case, the organisations they represent could not qualify in any way for the ‘dog collar Act.’ As far as the promises regarding 'the support of the miners is concerned, they are too busy trying to save their own soul to bother about you. Everybody knows that there is enough coal at grass to last for 12 months.”

It is significant, in view of the subsequent developments, that the men rejected the good counsel offered by Mr Johnson, whose only offence, obviously is that he urged the men to submit their claim for reconsideration to the Arbitration Court, at the same time warning the men that the Australian Government would not hesitate to enforce the licensing provisions of the Transport Act. The men have made their decision, and have come to grips, not merely with the Arbitration Court or the shipowners, but they have challenged the Government to enforce the laws of the land which have been placed on the Statute book to ensure orderly and sober relations between two great sections of the industrial life of Australia.