MEETING THE SITUATION

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 19, 23 January 1924, Page 7

MEETING THE SITUATION

DISLOCATION, NOT PARALYSIS.

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZBAIAND CABIB ASSOCIATION.) ' ' LONDON, 22nd January.

The present strike situation may be summed up as a dislocation but not a paralysis. Emergency plans for'dealing with the strike which were drawn up at a conference between the Board cil Trade and the Ministry V>f Transport will'only come into operation in the event of a crisis imperilling the nation's food supplies.

. Mr. Ben Tillett states'" that the real menace is th-\ chance that the whole transport system of the country may be embroiled. Many transporters feel that their grievances justify an extension of the strike.

. The National Union of Manufacturers estimates that in one way and another the strike costs the community £1,000,000 daily. If the normal railway services aro halvedj the companies' takings will be- reduced io £2,000,000 weekly. Averaging strike pay at 26s' per capita weekly, the stoppage will cost Mr. Bromley's union. £78,000 weekly. Workers managed to get. to London and other business centres ■with relatively little trouble. City firms are arranging for charabancs to bring in their workers. Many lorries came to the city with loads of laughing, typists and jesting clerks. Otters used bicycles.

The coal supplies for each family in London will be rationed at four hundredweight weekly. .