AFTERMATH OF THE STRIKE.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14886, 28 January 1914, Page 11

AFTERMATH OF THE STRIKE.

—; * ON THE WEST COAST. STRONG FEELING AGAINST THE RED FEDS. (special to 'the press.") HOKITIKA, January 27. There aro many indications on the West Coast that the workers learned a bitter lesson during the recent strike. When work was resumed there was nc scarcity of workers, and "the majority of the men gave the impression that they were heartily glad that the strike was off. There is a very strong feeling in Greymouth against the Red Feds, or the Social Democrats, as they noiv preferred to bo called. 'Last week Mr P. C. Webb. Member for OreymouiJi. received out, of ihv biggest fcurpn.ses of hi s lif o . Ho wat "turned down" by his own class, including many of the men who helped to put him in Parliament. Air Webb interview-Mi tho president and secretary ot the Greymouth Waterside Workeiv, Onion, ami a-sked that he should be allowed to address the L-uion. Tiie question was submitted to the mem bers, and .Mr Webb was shown pretty clearly, that the Union is done with tiie propagandist« of Red Fedism. By one hundred votes to two, the watersiders decided not to hear Air Webb, i . , M . cmbpr t°r Grey finds himself f,y the genuine workers lhe new Waterside Workers' Union is largely composed of steady and settled workers with families, aiid they seem to bo determined to do everything in their power to obliterate the Red Fed element, as they hold that Mr Webb and his fellow-revolutionaries have been the cause of the recent industrial upheavals. The membership of the new Union totals one hundred and fifty, and a large number of the old Union have joined. Tho whistle blew last Friday to start work at tho Blackball mine under the Arbitration Act, and all the miners seemed very eager to get back to work. For eleven weeks some of them ranted against the bogus or "scab" union; they would leave or die, they declared, before they would join any Arbitration union. But when the new Arbitration Union was formed they asked to be allowed to join it. It is stated on good authority that Mr P. Hickey visited Runanga the other day, and received anything but a cordial welcome. A larce number of tho Runanga and Blackball workers are very sore over the late strike. Thov declare they were led into the trouble by the strike leaders. Some of the men say it will take them and their families a year or more to get over the loss the strike entailed on them. • Before the strike the drapers and storekeepers in the Grov district experienced a great demand for red ties, but since the collapse of the strike rec , ties have been discarded. They are symbols which the Greymouth workers are now ashamed of. The genuineworkers, after all, are in tho great majority.