THE CANADIAN STRIKE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12711, 5 August 1919, Page 6

THE CANADIAN STRIKE.

POSITION IN VANCOUVER. MR QUANE’S EXPERIENCES. Mr H. Quane, of Christchurch, was in Vancouver during the whole of the strike in that city in June. His first experience of it was at dinner at bis hotel, lire musicians came in in the evening ae usual, but instead of begin.' ning to play, they packed up their instruments and left- The guests then were t'oid that the musicians had been, ordered out on strike. The following day the tram cars did not run. That inconvenience was met to some extent by tho Mayor, Mr Gale, repealing the anti-jitney by-law. The result was that scores of motor-cars appeared on the streets immediately. Everybody seemed to have a car. Private owners were authorised generally to charge faros, but they seldom did this, and most of them, seeing persons walking the streets, stopped t’o pick them up and give them a tree ride. Residents of V anoouver told a story of a man who was picked up in this way, and who saici to the owner of the car that it was good to see people walking instead of ndmg in tram cars. The owner pulled up at the kerbiug and asked the fare to get out and walk himself and see how he liked it. The licensed jitneys charged a fee of ten cents, or sd, for a long run as far as the trams went, and stopped to let fares out at any place. The Strike Committee threatened the Mayor that if the general use of jitneys was not stopped the telephone service would be interrupted, " u .“, volunteer operators joined with taithful employees of the telephone company in maintaining an adequate service in all parts of the city. One evening the Strike Committee informed hotelkeepers that guests would not be served with meat or fish. The hotelkeepers replied asking what classes of tood should he served, hut the commitp® , o nob carry the correspondence further, and meat and fish continued to be served. At the end of about four weeks the strikers showed that they 5C ls hea to get back to their jobs, but, Mr Quane states, they found it was less difficult to get out than to get in. The railway company and the tramway company had informed them that those who did not report at stated times would no longer be on the companies’ books.

The shrike ’ostensibly was in sympathy with a Winnipeg strike and with the following seven points:— 1. The re-instatement of the postal workers on strike in Winnipeg. 2. Immediate settlement of the postal workers' grievances. 8. The right of collective bargaining through any organisation the workers deem most suited to their needs. 4. Pensions for soldiers and their dependents on the basis laid down bv the soldiers’ organisations. 5. The minimum recognition for overseas shall be a grant of 2000 dollars gratuity.

6. The nationalisation, of all cold storage plants, abattoirs and. elevators, with a view to obtaining control of food storage.

7. The enactment of legislation for a six-hour day in all industries where unemployment is prevalent. The Vancouver strikers lost four weeks’ work, and the ‘‘Bulletin” of the. Citizens’ Association, whose motto was “ Away with Bolshevism,” set forth the gains as follows: 1. Government has stood firm on question of reinstatement of public servants taking part in sympathetic strikes.

2. Lack of faith in sympathetic strikes was shown by the attitude of the postal workers of this city. 8. No mention of this was made by the Strike Committee when the Vancouver strike collapsed. 4. and 5. Never mentioned bv the strike leaders all through the strike and certainly not at the finish. 6. TTiis also never mentioned. 7. The sapio answer applies to this. “It was riigrettable to’find a country, instead of taking advantage of peace in order to reconstruct its resources, in the throes of industrial troubles,” was Mr Quane’s comment on his experiences. “No nation,” he added, “can concentrate its thought on strikes and domestic quarrels and at the same time make itself industrially great.” J