WATERFRONT FIGHT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 131, 19 June 1937, Page 5

WATERFRONT FIGHT

■Pres3 Association.)

Firemen Assault Wharf Labourers LYTTELTON BATTLE

(By Telegraph—

CHRISTCHUECH, This Day. Six manacled firemen from the steamer Tairoa were marched by a police esfcort from the Lyttelton police station to the Magistrate 's Couft this morning where fines and sentences wrote conclusion to the biggest disturbance at the waterfront for some years — a fight between wateraiders and firemen on the foredeck of the Tairoa in which bottles, crockery, table-knives, baulks of wood and an Ugly iron bar were used as weapons. The Tairoa arrived in port yesterday morning and the men were given advanee of about £4 on their pay, A section .of them visiting hotels became very noisy and there was an arrest for drunkenness and obscene language a few aiinutes after six o'clock, but it was nit till the firemen were on their way back to the ship and eneountered a watersider working on the No. 7 wharf that the real trouble started. •Th%t watersider was struck on the mouth and when the firemen got on board their ship, a few of them picked upon the watersiders who were working in the holds and sonjething in the nature' of a pitched battle resulted. A few of the firemen paused at the top of the gangway to threaten the second officer of the ship. Two others accosted one of the watersiders working on the foredeck and, after asking him "what his religion was," attempted to assault him. ■ ^ It was then that the WatersiderB who were gathered on the wharf* and led by two men who had seen trouble coming and were eager to , protect their comrades on the ship, poured up the gangway. From the descriptions of the weapons used in this melee given in Court this morning, it was surprising that there was 0^1 yone real casualty. Tho exception was the watersider who was first eneountered on the wharf. A sudden blow split his lip and cost him three teeth. When three polieemen rushed to the seene, led by Sergeant D. Wilson, a heavy pieee of timber and a seven-foot iron bar missed them narrowly before they climbed the gangway. It was, in Sergeant Wilson 's words, "a very ugly spot," and in the Court this cnorning he expressed appreciation of the way that the watersiders had assisted the police. The police arfested four men on the Tairoa and, together with two other firemen who were arrested for drunkenness at other times they appeared in the Lyttelton Magistrate 's Court this morning before Justices of the Peace. Danny Eobinson, deseribed as 'the ringlpader, was fined £5, in default one month's impriBonment, for riotous and disorderly behaviour, and on each of two charges of assault he was senteuced to a month's imprisonment. James Gallagher was fined £5 for riotous behaviour, jn default a month's imprisonment, and was given imprispnment for a month for assault. John Henry Johnson and Patriek Varney were each fined £5, in default ,a month's imprisonment, for behaviug in a tlireatening manner to the Tairoa' s second qmcey. Thomas Adanis, who was arrested in Lyttelton prior to the fracag was fined £5, in default one month's imprisonment, for using obscene language and Was convicted and discharged for drunkenness. David Thomas RoWan, who followed the police to the station after the arrests, and would not go away, was lined £2, iu default seven days' inli prisonment, for beiug drunk and disorderly. Sergeant Wilson explained the general circumstances to the Court. "In the melee they used everything on the ship," he said. "There were kettles, crockery, ' dunnage and even iron hara. They scattered when the cry of 'Police' was raised." Sergeant Wilson said that the situation had been an ugly one with only tnr© police, but the watersiders gave mvaluable help. "The Court regards this interference with the watersiders and holding-up of work of the ship for an hour and a-half most serionsly," said tlie presiding Jnstice." The watersiders were not molesting anyone and should have been left alone. They never do interfere with others. 'J'hey are a peaceful class of men." All the gaol sentences carries the provieo that the men were to be put back on the ship before she sailed, as Lyttelton is the Tairoa's last port of call in Npw Zealand. ' It is unlikely that auy of the prisoners wiJl speud more thaii a few days in gaol.