ALLEGED SEDITIOUS STRIKE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3132, 10 July 1917, Page 4

ALLEGED SEDITIOUS STRIKE

HOLD-UP OF A COAL'STEAMER

At tho Magistrate's Court yesterday afternoon, before Mr. W. G. Riddell, R.M., the hearing was commenced of the charges brought by the Crown against a number of firemen employed on an intercolonial collier for being parties to a seditious strike. The firemen concerned ven»:'G. Anscombo, W. M. Oreen, Etbert Hand, James Mathews, W. Major, Charles M'Lean. W. Sime, and P. Fitshall.

Mr. P. S. IC. Macassey. of tho Crown Law Office, appeared for the prosecution, and Sir. H. F. O'Leary for the defendants. At the previous hearing the case against Ja.mes Mathews was taken, and the prosecution had concluded. Testerday tho case for the defendant was taken. ■. Mr. O'Leary, in opening, referred to the legal aspect of the case. To constitute a strike -under the Arbitration. Act tli-ere must be employment discontinued with a certain intent; in this case there was employment discontinued at the request of the employer. When Mathews said he could not sign on the new articles, and the others apparently followed him, they were not in employment, and therefore there could be no strike. The Crown did not suggest that the action of these men intended terfere with, the shipping industry. These men had time and again asked in.-a lα?''mate way to have their wrongs remedied, and they were still .willing to sign on with a steward who would see that they-; were properly provided with food, lnese men were ready to sign the new articles when an intimation that the steward was not going oft" made them change their minds. For these men to be conyicted it must be proved that the direct result, or tendencv, of their action must have been to interfere with the shipping industry. He submitted that tho delay of the boat, tho interference with shipping, w nn indirect result; their action had an indirect tendency to interfere at most. Mr. O'Leary reviewed the evidence given for the prosecution, and indicated tho evidence he'proposed calling. He referred at length to tho complaints of the men T6"arding bad'food and the responsibility of "the chief steward for this. ' Evidence was given for the defence by Mathews, the defendant Mr. Young (secretary of the Seamen s Union), and several others. The hearing of the case had not concluded when the Court roso.