TOWNSVILLE’S TROUBLES.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 August 1919, Page 5

TOWNSVILLE’S TROUBLES.

CONTINUATION OF STRIKE. LAWLESSNESS REIGNS. STATE ASSISTS STRIKERS. SYDNEY, Aug. 13. Extraordinary conditions prevail in Townsville, in North Queensland. The town has been in the grip of a strike ever since the employees of the two large meat works went , out on strike as a protest against the continued employment of certain men whom they did not like. It may be remembered that there was serious rioting for a while, and then the town settled down into sullen wailing, with a regular regiment of police hurriedly drafted from other districts, to keep order.

Recent information from Townsville shows a depressing condition of affairs. Prevailing lawlessness is only kept in check with difficulty. "The more decent class of men and women have been grossly insulted, kicked, rendered insensible, and plundered in broad daylight in the main streets,’ ’ says one correspondent. "There is scarcely a baker’s shop in the place which has not had its windows broken.”

The Queensland Government is distributing monetary “relief” to the unemployed in the town —which means, of course, that the strikers are being maintained with public money, and allowed to hold out. Bread and meat are distributed amongst them by the Government, yet there is a shortage of food in the north, and the townsfolk going w T ith the money in their hands, cannot get what they want. The “unemployed” in many eases are selling their Government rations and dissipating the j> roeee< ls ™ the nearest bar. Women dare not go out of doors after dark, and the patrolling policemen walk about in fours, fully armed.