USED TEAR GAS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20361, 19 July 1934, Page 1

USED TEAR GAS.

POLICE DISPERSE RIOTING STRIKERS.

San Francisco Hold-up. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT WILL NOT INTERVENE. United Tress Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received July 19, 1.5 p.m.) SAN FRANCISCO, July 18. San Francisco was virtually free ’ from violence as thousands of troops and police maintained the tightest hold !on the situation. In Seattle, however, 1000 striking longshoremen stormed the dock where a ship was unloading and had a lively scuffle with the police before being dispersed by tear gas. The Central Labour Council at Spokane has declared a boycott of all Californian goods until the troops are evacuated. In Oakland a committee of businessmen opened four restaurants in defiance of union orders, and threw up barricades before the establishments to protect them against assaults by the workers. In Chicago Mr William Green, on behalf of the American Federation of Labour, disowned the general strike and declared that the unions in California were acting on their own initiative. He indicated that they would get no support from the central body. Meanwhile, in answer to a deluge of wirelessed pleas that he should intervene personally. President Roosevelt, from the cruiser Houston, communicated a brief message to the Secretary of Labour, Miss Perkins, saying that he had confidence in the Arbitration Board’s ability to handle the matter. There was no intimation that he would take any action. Everyday life in San Francisco assumed something of a “ strike routine ” to-day, as, in the utmost confusion, the rival forces fought among themselves to agree on an acceptable method to end the strike. Many persons were still forced to walk to work. General business remains paralysed, but the threatened food shortage evaporated as supplies were moved in. and, incidentally, the original fears of widespread hunger were found to be largely imaginary. The Federal Mediation Board, encouraged by the arbitration resolution passed last night by the Strike Committee, started conferences to-day. but immediately ran into a stonewall, as the Employers’ Association said that, while it was willing to agree to arbitraton on the differences of the longshoremen, it would not act likewise with the nine other striking maritime unions unless by a vote they accept the proposal. As many union members are aboard ships scattered to the four comers of the world, such polls obviously are immediately impossible. However. 500 radio operators at sea are proceeding to take the strangest strike vote in history on their own instruments. They are wirelessing their votes to headquarters here. If twothirds accept the strike and call it they will seriously disrupt such shipping as is still functioning from Pacific Coast ports.