IN FIGHTING MOOD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 502, 3 November 1928, Page 9

IN FIGHTING MOOD

WALSH DEFIES SEAMEN

UNDER POLICE PROTECTION (United P.A. —By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) SYDNEY, Friday. A dramatic scene was enacted to-day at the office of the Seamen’s Union. Nine members of the organisation, who claimed to represent 800, strode into the office and called upon Mr. Tom Walsh to relinquish the general secretaryship.

Two detectives sat between Mr. Walsh and the deputation, and a posse of uniformed police lined the stairs leading to the office. Mr. Walsh, with a display of all his old fighting spirit, flatly refused to obey the behest of his visitors. He said he would do nothing of the kind. —” Vitriolic remarks were uttered, and charges were made of interference with the rules. Mr. Walsh, pounding the table, rejoined: “Look here. A certain section of the union has committed the greatest outrage iu its history in the manipulation of those rules.”

Members of the deputation talked themselves to a standstill, and then left the office muttering all kinds of threats.

The Chief Secretary, Mr. A. Bruntnell, stated to-day that he had instructed the police to adopt very stern measures for the suppression of all forms of lawlessness. His comment arose out of the threats against Mr. Walsh and of disturbances at election meetings.