UNIONS BLAMED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 191, 15 August 1940, Page 6

UNIONS BLAMED

SAN FRANCISCO A DEAD PORI AUSTRALIAN SHIPPING MAN’S EXPERIENCE * I’er Ae&uclaUon. J AUCKLAND, Aug. 14. "Don’t growl about your union* here: you are lucky to be the way you arc." In these- words Sir V/alter Carpenter, Australian shipping leader, drew a sharp comparison Detween labour conditions in New Zealand and the United States, when he arrived by the Mariposa from a business trip to America. "It is a tragedy to see San Francisco to-day,” he said. "Once it was a flourishing port. Now it is dead. Before leaving to return to Australia i stood on a hill above the bay and looked over 150 docks of the vast water front. There were only five ships there. Labour troubles at the port are such that no shipowner will send a ship there if he can help it. "Control of the waterfront by the various unions is rigid. When a captain enters he cannot be sure when he will get out again. An ships that can do so cut out ’Frisco. The people are inclined to blame Harry Bridges (Aus-tralian-born leader of tne C. 1.0 on the Pacific Coast), but it is not his fault entirely. It is the waterfront unions and the unions behind them that control the position. Sir Walter Carpenter bought two ships in the United States, each of SuOV tons, the Admiral Chase and Admiral Day. These are on their way from Canada to Australia and will trade between those two countries. If sufficient inducement offered they would in elude New Zealand, he said. On trips south they will carry timber, general cargo, and sulphate, returning to Canada with copra from Fiji and New Guinea.

The Minister of Agriculture, Hon. W. Lee Martin, met Sir Walter Carpenter, welcoming him for the Government, and later discussed shipping matters with him.