ELECTION ISSUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 236, 5 October 1928, Page 7

ELECTION ISSUE.

ANTI-STRIKE ACT.

Bruce Places Matter Before The Country.

RESUMPTION AT ADELAIDE.

(Received 11 a.m.) MELBOURNE, this day. Mr. S. M. Bruce (Commonwealth Prime Minister) definitely declines to repeal the Transport Workers Act. He said the Ministry had been informed by the trade union movement that if the regulations under this Act were not enforced the watersiders would return to work. The Ministry, however, could not .agree. It was determined to end the strike on the waterfront. There would be an election in about six weeks' time and if the people felt that any injustice had been done to the workers they could remove the Government from the control of the affairs of the Commonwealth.

Official negotiations for a settlement of the strike have been commenced. Mr. Bruce agreed to meet representatives of the Council of Trades Unions. Prior to the meeting Mr. Bruce conferred with the Attorney-General, the Minister of Home and Territories and the vice-president of the Executive Council. No official statement has yet been issued, but it is learned that the men's representatives proposed that the unions should register their own members under the Transport Workers Act, thus avoiding individual registration. It is claimed that under that proposal the objection that registration was designed to destroy union control might be overcome. The maritime unions' conference adopted the report of its sub-committee. This gives power to the Council of Trades Unions to negotiate. The scheme proposed by the sub-committee, which will not be put into operation pending the negotiations for a settlement, follows closely in wording and effect the motion tabled by Jock Garden, secretary of the New South Wales Trade and Labour Council, on Tuesday. The extremists, led by Garden, yesterday suggested a two-days' strike of electricians aM gas workers, but that proposal—which was moved as an amendment to the sub-committee's report—is being vigorously fought by the moderates. The shipowners say the position is satisfactory. Cargo for overseas is being received and dispatched by free labour. The Tasmanian services are being maintained. It is estimated that to date the strikers in Melbourne have lost £30,000 in wages. The waterside workers at Adelaide resume to-day under the Beeby award. The shipowners have agreed that the unionists and volunteers should, in future, be engaged at separate depots.

Violence and Sabotage. A crowd of 500 strikers at Port Adelaide attacked two Italians yesterday after the latter had registered and obtained licenses. When the Italians were attacked they sprang into an omnibus, but it was surrounded by strikers, who bombarded it with wood blocks. The passengers attempted to eject the Italians, but they remained in the bus until a strong force of police arrived and escorted them to the station. During the absence of a wharf watchman at South Brisbane an attempt wasmade to cast adrift the steamer Canonbar. A force of water police arrived just as the vessel's bows were swinging into mid-stream. The captain and the mate! were asleep on board. They were awakened and, assisted by the flood-tide, managed to take the vessel back to her moorings. Investigations showed that a sin mooring hawser at the bows had been cut through and another rope at the stern had been cut half through. Seventeen members of the crew of the steamer Fiona were arrested at Lucinda Point, charged with disobeying the commands of the captain. Ten of them were also charged under the Federal Crimes Act with hindering the transport of goods between the States. The men were remanded to Ingham. On the way to Ingham the police who made the arrests, travelling on a jigger ahead, discovered an attempt to wreck the train. A length of line had been displaced, the fishplates had been removed, and the line had been moved out. The train was delayed for several hours.

Eight of the Fiona's crew were sentenced to one month's imprisonment.

BRITISH SEAMEN.

WILL STAND ALOOF. (United Service.) LONDON, October 4. Commenting on the waterside workers' strike in Australia yesterday Mr. J. Havelock Wilson, ex-president of the Sailors and Firemen's Union, said his message to Labour in the Commonwealth was:—"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." Mr. Wilson said he was not afraid of the influence of the propagandist literature which the transport and maritime unions' had decided to distribute among British crews. He could paper houses with such pamphlets. The British seamen were not going to join in a struggle fomented by those who were anxious to 6raash unionism.