GENERAL STOPPAGE THREATENED.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11265, 5 February 1912, Page 5

GENERAL STOPPAGE THREATENED.

NO FAMINE YET.

FOOD COUPONS BEING ISSUED,

Press Association—Electric Telegraph—Copyrifiht. Received Monday, at 9 a.m. BRISBANE, Monday. It is stated that the Strike Committee is discussing the question of general strike throughout Australia, and this is borne out by the statement made in Melbourne by the president of the Australian Tramway Employes' Association that if the strike was unsettled by the end of next week not a single wheel would go round in any of the tramway services in the various States, and the striKe would also extend to the New South Wales railway service and the Waterside Workers and Fedoratcd Workers' Associations. He added that a meeting of the Adelaide tramwaymen would bo held to-day to consider the question of wearing Union badges, which had not }'et been done, and lie believed that this would result in their adopting the badges, and thus securing an extension of the strike to another State, and necessitating the intervention of the Arbitration Court. DELIVERY OF FOOD. Although there is difficulty in obtaining delivery of food, so far there is nothing in the shape of a famine. The police are still being augmented witJi increased force. The system of picketing shojis is being broken up. LEAVING THE CITY. The Strike Committee is issuing food coupons to Unionists, and is asking those with money to refrain from obtaining them, as the funds are required for the less fortunate. Numbers of strikers are leaving the city till the trouble is over. It is stated that an attempt will probably be made to re-start the trams to-day. It is alleged that men are available, and the question is only one of adequate police protection, Special prayers were offered in all tho churches yesterday for the restoration of industrial peace. PREMIER DISSATISFIED. The Premier is dissatisfied with the refusal of military 'aid, and declares that Mr Fisher placed tho Strike Executive on an equality with the State Government, and refused aid because the Strike Committee objected. MR FISHER'S STATEMENT. Received Monday, at ( .) a.m. MELt.OUR.NE, Monday. Hon. A. Fisher, Premier, states that he has been asked to call the Federal Parliament together to consider the position, but he considers this impracticable, as the Commonwealth has no right to intervene in a State matter, and why should lie call Parliament together to enable the Opposition to direct that troops should be sent to aid the Queensland Government. If troops were sent, there would surely be bloodshed.