A FRENCH STRIKE TO END THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1919, Page 5

A FRENCH STRIKE TO END THE WAR.

ATTEMPT DURING GERMAN THRUST FOR PARIS. (Times Correspondent.) Paris, March 5. The trial of 41 Syndicalists, nearly all belonging to the Loire, on various charges connected with an attempt to fprce the Government to make peace a year ago by means of a..general strike of all munition workers, began to-day before the court-martial at ClermontFerraud.

The chief accused person" is Andriu'x, secretary of the Metal Union of Firminy, who was fjr|st arrested in December, 1917. He was a'fterwards released, and then, aided by M- Flageollet, secretary of the Union of the, Trade, Unions of the Loire, he begifa a pacifist' movement with the suppott.of M. secretary of the Trade" Union Committee of Defence in Paris'. In' Match last year the Minority trade unionists of the Loire and neighboring departments .met in congress at St. Eticnne and openly discussed an by.means of. a general strike-and a, revolution, On May 19, at a, fresh congress in the same town, r general strike was voted, and on May 23 an ultimatum was addressed by the Central Committee to. the Prefect of the Loire demanding that tho Government should at once sign an armistice, failing which there would be a ? general strike. The strike began, and spread ail oyer the Loire Basin, the movement being all the more disquieting as that was the moment selected by the Germans for their thrift for Paris.

All but two of the accused men had) Been jhbbllised, and most are being tried for deserting their posts in war time, inciting soldiers to disobedience, and similar charges.