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Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1925, Page 2

Tint two principal causes of the Australian shipping crisis were, until the other day, a dispute about overtime in Brisbane and a clash of union against union in Fremantle; or so at least one gathered from reading the cables. In the first ease the crew of the steamer Wvamlra refused to take the vessel to sea unless a demand was conceded for overtime payment on account of the deferred sailing of the vessel. The award says that men shall lie paid overtime for that period which elapses between the “clocked” time and the ac tual time of starting, unless the delay is due to circumstances over which the owners have no control. In the ease of the Wyandra tile delay was due to the failure of some merchants in Sydney to have their goods ready in time, and the owners, regarding this as a circumstance beyond their control, refused overtime. They offered, however, to refer the matter to the Arbitration Court, and did so refer it. but the men took direct action and held the vessel up. They are still holding it up in spite of the fac-t that the Court has found their claim to be invalid and has ordered them to take the vessel to sea. The trouble in Fremantle began with friction between two unions, and ended in the seamen’s union declaring the waterside workers’ federation ‘'black.”

But. notes the “Press”, we have since been asked to believe that the real cause of the deadlock, the vital principle at stake, is whether shipowners shall pick up men at their own offices or at the headquarters of the seamen’s

union. Tin? Fremantle dispute luul been settled, a quarrel which hud developed in Sydney between the Shipping Bureau and the Waters idols' Federation seemed to he ending without further complications., there was nothing worse than a sympathetic stoppage of work in Melbourne, when suddenly it was announced by tbe seamen's union that crews could Ik; picked up only at union headquarters. And so we have the ridiculous situation of a strike costing thousands of pounds hourly, and involving tens of thousands of innocent people in direct hiss and suffering, for the sole purpose of showing the masters that they are the servants of their servants