NO EMPIRE-WIDE STRIKE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2016, 16 August 1919, Page 3

NO EMPIRE-WIDE STRIKE.

HAVELOCK WILSON’S REPUDIATION. “I TOOK MY GRUEL, LET WALSH .TAKE HIS!” London, July 17. Mr Havelock Wilson, general president of the National Seamen's Union, was specially interviewed Cor the Sun to-day on the subject of the request from the Australian Seamen’s Union for an Empire-wide strike.

He said: “As the-Avliole‘facts have not been furnished to me, it would be unfair for me to discuss the merits of the Australian strike. “As far as concerns Mr Walsh’s appeal for an Empire-wide strike if the leaders were prosecuted, I shall do nothing of the kind. 'When a man is accused of breaking the law he must submit to a trial.

“I speak as a man who underwent what I felt was an unjust trial by an unfair jury, and I got six weeks. “I took my gruel, and did not appeal for an Empire-wide or any other sort of strike, and I expect them to do the same. Such appeals seemingly indicate that they are at the end of their tether.” Mr Havelock Wilson added that he had known Senator Guthrie and other former leaders of the seamen for 30 years. They were the most level-headed lot in the trades union movement, but unfortunately they had been deposed because they were patriotic. Unknown new leaders had taken their places, “There is too much talk of general strikes,” declared Mr M ilson. “People have the idea that a general strike can be called any minute without consulting the workers. Some men on this side of the water in the same way are getting loose notions, and are advocating that the executives should be empowered to call strikes without ballots. Yet the same agitators persistently recjuesl the extension of the parliamentary franchise. That is not democracy.”