SEAMEN'S ANGRY WIVES.

Shannon News, 12 January 1926, Page 4

SEAMEN'S ANGRY WIVES.

CASES OF GREAT SUFFERING. LONDON, December 30. "The cablegram announcing that Tom Walsh will shortly be coming to Britain is joyful news, because the seamen's angry wives are forming vigilance committees at each port to deal with him," said Mr J. HavelocJc Wilson .president of the Seamen's Union. "Probably they are waiting! with the bouquets concealing bricks. I am going to sit back and watch the fun." "The women intend putting some straight questions regarding the damage Walsh has done to their homes. Their husbands have not received strike pay. TJiey declare that they have suffered at the hands of men like Walsh, and do not intend to permit a repetition. Flora Drummond, who was nicknamed 'General jDrummond' during her militant suf. fragette days, and now a bitter enemy of Communism, is organising *the women." Mr Wilson added that last week the Seamen's Union paid £3OOO to the exstrikers' starving wives and children. "I cabled to Walsh to-day," he said, "reminding him that he had not replied to my week-end cable in reference to that £3OOO. I pointed out that if he had not the money to recoup us at Christmas he/ might send it at New Year, or bring it with him. The women are also preparing a reception for Mr. Lyddall, secretary of the Sydney strikers' committee,' now on his way back to England by the Ormuz." Letters from the ex-strikers' wives, Mr Wilson continued; disclose pitiful ' suffering. For, instance, Mrs Cottam wrote: —"The (money you paid will enable me to buy mourning for my husband, Thomas Cottam, who waa killed on December .15 by a train at . Fremantle, after being 14 weeks on strike. He left England in April, (and das ybeen looking" forward to i his return in January. But now he, will never return. We had been married only 13 months." " "The seamen's meeting in Sydney showed that Walsh is departing not a day too soon," remarked Mr Wilson, "i have ample confirmation of the I fact that' British seamen are disgusted with their treatment by the Australian Seamen's Union, especially the barring of them from em- : ployment on Austi-alian ships. "I am prepared to bet that Walsh will visit Russia. Receatly I read a book, published^in Chicago, entitled "The Red Revolution of the Sea," wherein the author. Tom Barker, declared that Walsh's name \.es a pass, port to any part of Ru,s«ia. Barke-, who is British, went from jAustralia to the Argentine. "Walsh's claim that his new union has 4000 members at Tilbury is all nonsense. It has not 40 there. Tilbury refused to listen to the Communists / during the strike.* '