THE WAIHI TROUBLE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 73, 13 August 1912, Page 6

THE WAIHI TROUBLE

AUCKLAND LABOR VIEW. LETTER SENT TO SYDNEY TRADES-, COUNCIL. * Auckland, August 9. The letter sent by the secretary of the Auckland ;body (Mr. Tom Walsh) to Mr. Kavanagh, secretary of the Sydney Trades and Labor Council, referred to in to-day's cablegram, reads as follows: "Your letter regarding the Waihi • strike was read at the last meeting of the Council, and after considerable discussion the following resolution was carried, with only one dissentient: " 'That the Auckland' Council cannot see its way clear to recommend an Australian union or your council to contribute to the Waihi strike fund, because the trouble at Waihi is not a labor dispute, but an attempt by a union that has adopted I.AV.W.-ism to intimidate another union which prefers to register under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act.' "The Federation of Labor has not approached the Auckland Council with a request for funds. The position is such that the Federation of Labor representatives refuse to even allow meetings to be held that are not organised by the Federation itself, and does its best to break such meetings up. The policy of this Council and of the United Labor Party ia antagonistic to the I.W.W. movement,

IF VIOLENCE HAPPENS. MR. PARRY ON THE REVOLVER STATEMENT. Auckland, August 9. Messrs W. E. Parry, president of the Waihi Miners' Union, and P. president of the Auckland Laborers' Union, both members of the executive committee of .the Federation of Labor, are at present in Auckland after a brief organising tour in the East Coast district. Seen this morning with reference to the remarks made by Mr. A. Harris, M.P., concerning an alleged Socialists' Sunday school in Waihi and other matters concerning the strike area, Messrs Parry and Fraser expressed themselves as being greatly tickled at the "discovery" wbicb Mr. Harris thought he had made. The reference to the "American" was, of course, to Mr. J. B. King, a wellknown I.W.W. advocate, and a very prominent open-air speaker about Aucldand. As a matter of fact, Mr. King had never conducted a Sunday school of any kind in Waihi, and (Mr. Fraser was emphatic about this) Mr. King had never been connected in any way with the Socialist party. Mr. King himself would be the first to repudiate the idea that the tactics he had described were such as had been effectively used in certain Continental countries and in America, in I places where the restrictive legislation } was such that unionists were driven to such methods as a last resource. ■Mr. Parry characterised the statement of the Conciliation Commissioner, Mr. P. Hally, concerning revolvers, and indicated by black headlines in the papers, as ft deliberate attempt to incite the Waihi men to violence. "To see exaggeration of this kind after we have kept peaceful s6 long," said Mr. Parry, "is most aggravating—it is putting the union officials in an impossible position. What have we to do? We would be blamed if we were to conduct things so that fighting were the order of the day, and this is what we get when we have conducted the struggle peacefully. If such. a thing as an outbreak of personal violence comes about it will be directly due i to the aggravation caused by the promi- J nence given to the irritating remarks of! Mr. Hally." Mr, Parry went on to say J that Mr. Rally's whole statement—a I grudging acknowledgment of the correct- J ness of Mr. Parry's first contentions—! was such that it would have been only a I fair thing for him to say that he had J seen nothing at all to justify the carry- j I ing of firearms. i