WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1920, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

TROUBLE OF WATEJt-FIIONT.

E.AUM ,0 V ERS TA KK - ACT! ON

(Our Special Correspondent)

WELLINGTON, Aug. 24

AVith scarcely any warning and with 110 adequate explanation the people of AVellington wore plunged yesterday into strike conditions hardly .less discomforting than those from which they suffered seven years ago. The officials of the Waterside AVorkers’ Union having consigned the agreement with t)ie employers to the place prepared for all their inconvenient obligations the men refused to work £bc cargo of Japanese phosphates on board the Mcikai Maru lying at tiie wharf at the stipulated rate of pay, and the employers thereupon declined to allow any other work to proceed till the men accepted the decision of the Disputes (Committee which had ruled against thepi. The effect of this was that several cargoes of coal, which the men professed to lie willing and anxious to unload, were held up and the city, which has been existing on short commons of fuel almost since the beginning of the war was plunged into an actual famine. AVITH OUT GA ( S AND AVITHOUT TRAMS.

There were very limited gas supplies and a very restricted tram service on Monday, hut yesterday there were neither gas supplies nor tram services. A very large proportion of the homes in Wellington and practically all the restaurants, where thousands of persons employed in the city got their luncheons every working day, are entirely dependent upon gas for their cooking operations. The inconvenience occasioned by tlie supply being shut off may be imagined. The lot of folk with sickness in their home's was worse than inconvenient. Minor ailments, including a persistent form of cold that has invadedalmost every home in the city and suburbs, are very prevalent just now and even doctors’ orders for fuel bring no more than a tiny bag of coke, and perhaps a bucketful of coal. Happily the weather is better than it lias been for some months past, but AVellington never can be counted upon in this respect. THE RIGHTS AND THE WRONGS. A meeting of the members of the AA’aterside AVorkers’ Union is being held at the time of writing and there is some hope of the men frankly admitting themselves in the wrong and returning to work. The employers have taken up definitely the stand that until the men recognise their obligations under the existing agreement, which provides for payment at the rate of 2s 5d an hour for unloading phosphates, no employment will be offered to them and no meeting of the-Disputes Committee will •be held. “If the men resume work,” the manager of the AA’aterside Employment Association said this morning, “1 am quite prepared to call the Disputes Committee together and the points over which there is a difference of opinion can then be discussed.” The president of the men’s union merely pleads that phosphates are so injurious to the men’s clothing they cannot afford to work them at the stipulated pay. PUBLIC* OPINION. But even the representatives of the men admit that the cargo of the Meikai M aru, which is packed in double bags with stout paper lining, is turning out so well it is no more objectionable to handle than a cargo of sugar or grain would be. Public opinion is so well satisfied, indeed, that the men have no reasonable ground for their refusal to work it is shaping almost unanimously against them. A community that is suffering acutely in a score of ways from the suspension of work on the wharves, may not be an altogether unbiased judge as to tho merits of tlie disbut after making allowance for all this the attitude of the people of AA’ellington is very significant. Seven years ago tlie city bad a certain measure of sympathy with the strikers, thinking they had genuine grievances, but to-day it suggests no excuses for the repudiation of agreements and the wanton disregard for the public welfare.