AN AGITATOR ROUGHLY HANDLED.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14841, 5 December 1913, Page 8

AN AGITATOR ROUGHLY HANDLED.

HUSTLED OFF THE MAHENO. EMERGENCY CREW REFUSE TO SAIL WITH HIM. INDIGNATION OF "SPECIALS." (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, December 4. A prominent syndicalist agitator who had booked t© Sydney by the Maheno, which left Auckland to-night, lost his passage because some of the emergency crew objected to working any 6teamer on which he was a passenger. The syndicalist, by name Charles Reeve, had secured a,berth and boarded the steamer as a passenger, • but before the Maheno sailed he was roughly pulled from bis cabin, forced down the gangway, hustled along the wharf, and finally cast off in Queen street, by which,time he presented a very, woebegone and dishevelled appearance. The bitter feelings of resentment which culminated in the attack upon Reeve have been rankling In the minds of the special constables for a long time, and the fact ""that a number of "specials" had engaged to work the Maheno across to Sydney made the presence of Reeve on the Maheno objectionable to th© crew. These feelings _wre principally engendered by the 'man's public utterances, which have been in keeping with the professed creed of the I.W.W. What is said to have chiefly angered the "specials" is the suggestion.which Reeve is credited with having made, in one of his street speeches, that the strikers should march into the country and wreak their vengeance for th© capture from them of the port by the "cockies," upon farmers' wives.

Tho Maheno was timed to sail at 5 p.m., "and a few minutes before that hour Reeve, having parted on the wharf from a friend who had expressed the hope that he would "put up a good fight," went on board. He was "escorted" by a body of wharf "specials," who expressed their opinion of him freely, one of them snatching his hat as he gained the steamer's deck. As long as Reeve remained in 6ight he was subjected to taunts and was heartily "boohed." Further, his identity was proclaimed to ( the passengers and to the crew. A section of these proceeded to eject Reeve from the vessel, declaring that they would not make the trip if he did. The upshot was that the emergency crew, by the exercise of main force, got rid of the would-be passenger. He was dragged, none too gently, along the deck on to tbe wharf and out through a shed into. Quay street. Finally th© excited "specials" and amateur firemen were induced by a squad of mounted police to leave him alone, and he walked quietly away. Reeve's luggage was landed and taken possession of by the police.

The Maheno sailed without Reeve at 6.30 p.m.