New Zealand News.

Taihape Daily Times, 3 January 1918, Page 7

New Zealand News.

AUSTRALIAN SLAUGHTERMEN. TARANAKI MEN REFUSE TO WORK WITH THEM. In a Taranaki meat works recently a couple of Australian butchers appeared. As soon as they took off their coats, the other workmen held a meeting and immediately decided to inform the management that if the visitors went on they would go off. A representative of the men saw the Australians, who told them of the position stating that they had nothing against them personally indeed, they were willing to help them financially if necessary —but they objected to the principle of Australians filling the places of their own men who had gone to the front, and simply would not work alongside them. The management wisely decided to consult the wishes of their own staff, and the Australians went elsewhere. One of them afterwards secured a job in another works, only to find that the workmen there took up a similar attitude. The employees of the freezing works throughout the Dominion resent very much the incoming of Australians, who are not subject to military conscription, and there is a united determination not to work in any place where they are employed.

AS AUSTRALIA GOT IT. WELLINGTON December 31 When Wellington was in the throes of Christmas shopping, and its streets crowded with happy holiday-makers on Christmas Eve, many people in Melbourne were worrying about a revolution which was reported to have broken out in the Now Zealand eaptial. The censorship over nows cabled from New Zealand is close, and, after the usual habit of censors in war-time, it is not always customary to allow anything to be said about a serious happening until it is all over. No doubt the Melbourne people reasoned in this way over the absence of news of the " revolution” but the New- Zealanders there cabled to the Prime Minister through the New- Zealand Commissioner, Mr. Manson; "Persistent rumour revolution in Wellington. Two hundred people killed. Think it advisable you cable emphatic denial. ’ ’ So Mr Massey did, as he has had to do before in regard to rumours of trouble in New Zealand which never existed. He cabled; "Rumour mentioned your telegram untrue and absurd. No trouble or friction any part of New' Zealand. 'All sections looking fonvard to enjoying Christmas holidays..! ’ It so happened that the Christmas season in Wellington was one of the quietest on record. Six o ’clock closing seems to have had a remarkable effect in decreasing drunkenness, so that there was not even a street rumpus during the festival, and only nine drunkards, all of whom had been comparatively peaceable, faced the magistrate on Boxing Day.