Australian Cables

Horowhenua Chronicle, 3 April 1913, Page 3

Australian Cables

J.BY BLBCXRI.C TELBGRAPH-COfllliaatJ [rau PKKSB association, j (Received This Day, 9.20 a.m.) LABOUR UNRKBT. •SYDNEY, This Day. Peter Bowling has .slated iliat it is possible, unions something is done to relieve the position, that the .southern coalfields strike may extend. The .southern colliery proprietors' lioats are being lo;ulod at .Newcastle. Municipal councils on the northern ■side of the harbour have decided that the ferry services are totally inadequate and that tin* time lias arrived for the Government (without further delay) taking practical steps to bridge the harbour. VITAL STATISTICS. •SYDNEY. This Day. The metropolitan birth rale lor .March is 30.7-1. being the highest for twelve years. The death rate is 11.85. which is above (he Last five yens' average. MORIC LABOUR TROUBLKS. Four hundred men are out at Darling liai bour yards, which a*re closed fin , the present, clerks and officials alone remaining on duty. ICnormous (jiiantities of goods are piled in the yards ,;i wait ing delivery, and the dislocation <>!' business is verv seri-

ous. Arrangements are being made to clean , perishable goods. The strikers' ranks have been swelled by thirty railwaymen working on Darling Island wheat sheds. The trouble is the outcome of the refusal of tho Railway Commissioner to grant the men's demand for a -18 hours' week instead of the present 10fi hours' fc'rtniirht. and an increase of wages from 8s to i)s per day with an overtime rate of time-and-a-half and some other concessions. The Commissioner definitely refused to treat with the strikers until they resumed. At >n mass meeting of men the seriousness of their position was pointed out in view of the regulation that provide! that on striking railway men lose all their service towards a retiring pension. Some of the strikers have been thirty years in the service. Tho nieoFing appointed a committee to meet t*ho industrial inspector nnd discuss the situation, and resolved to allow gilekoopors and watchmen to remain 'it -work to protect the Commissioner's property. The Hon. Mr Carniichael. after receiving the report of the industrial registrar, declarer! that the outlook was ugly; them was no chance of work being resumed at present: and he added that he intended to prosecute both the Darling Harbour and tho Ferrv strikers.