AUSTRALIAN SLAUGHTERMEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1917, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN SLAUGHTERMEN.

TAIiANAKI MEN REFUSE TO WORI? WITH THEM. In a Taranaki meat works recently f couple of Australian butchers appeared. Ab 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, and told them of the position, stating that they had nothing against them personally—indeed, they were willing to help them finuiclfdIy, if necessary—but they objected to the principle of Australians filling tht places of their own men who had gone to the front, and simply would not woHc alongside them. The management w»«ly decided to consult the wishes of their own staff, and the Australians went dfewhere. One of them afterward* secured a job in another works, only to find that the workmen there took up a similar attitude. The employees of the muting works throughout the Dominion resent very much the incoming, of Australians, who are not subject tomilitary conscription, and there is a united determination not to work in any place where they are employed.

r Yesterday's Wellington Times cay at Australian slaughtermen are still arriving in New Zealand from Australia lor the slaughtering season, which has opened in the North Island. Some of the works have refused to employ the Australians, holding that they should not be employed in the Dominion when New Zealanders are fighting at tbelrbut, and their places being taken by men who voted against conscription. In the oaf* where companies hare" employed Aw traliana work is proceeding smoothly %% is understood, however, that there 1* a possibility of two or three Australians being sent back to the Commonwealth as ''undesirables" in the military sense the word. A member of the Freezers' IWoc stated to a New Zealand Times rsportsr that, with r. few exceptions, Aiwtraliass are connected with American flrnuL Xf» to the present about fifty Australia* .slaughtermen have oome to the D minion, and there are more to follow?.