AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 28, 27 October 1917, Page 11

AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

9 THE GOVERNMENT WINS OUT. A well-known Wellington resident who has returned from a two months' visit to Australia had a very full experience of the strike both in Sydney and Melbourne. 'Though thcro were upwards of 10fl,S00 men concerned in tho trouble, they were on tho whole vory orderly, and after the first week's dislocation of the tram and railway services, inconveniences began to disappear, and gradually things got back to normal. Tho processions of strikers during the first week or two of tho strike were well conducted, and not onco was a drunken man seen amongst the paraders. The rowdiest scenes he witnessed were in Melbourne, when Miss Pankhurst headed a big rabble which did a lot of window-smashing in tho main streets. The worst of the trouble occurred at about 8 o'clock in tho evening, when all tho young men were about, and the spirit of deviltry entored them on recognising that the darkened streets prevented dotection. Tho whole thing was disgraceful, and the next day a very strong protest was niado against the curtailment of the street lighting. There was no doubt whatever that the "loyalists" (as they 1 called the men from tho country) broka tho strike. The fact that these strong, hefty young fellows from the mountains and plains of the back country were there as an organised force, prepared to do sny kind of work, was a revelation to tho strikers. In Sydney there woro rumours being circulated that there were riots in Wellington, as the result of which tho military had been called out and several men killed. He was in a position to givo such yarns flat contradiction, and did so whenever ho had tho opportunity.

When he left Sydney things wore pretty well back to normal. The Government had insisted on an unconditional surrender, end it won tho day. Tho card system at tho railway workshops, which commenced tho strike, was still in force, and likoly to bo. A humorous illustration of t.h'o temper of the strikers in Syd-' noy, and an index to their peculiar auglo of vision, was the statement heard by the visitor: "Tho trouble about all these 'ere industrial upheavals is that the Government wants to run tho country!"