LABOUR TROUBLES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9690, 14 January 1910, Page 5

LABOUR TROUBLES.

j THE NEWCASTLE STRIKE. PREDICTION BY MR HUGHES. CRUCIAL DEVELOPMENTS EXPECTED. United Press Association—By Electric Telegarph Copyright. Received January 13, 9.50 a.m. SYDNEY, January 13. Mr W. M. Hughes, M.H.R., president of the Waterside Workers' Union, predicts that there will be a crucial developments in regard to the Newcastle strike during the next few days. Hardly a day passed in the year just closed in which New South Wales was free from strikes and socialist declamation. The Sydney "Daily Telegraph" says:—"During the first five months more than one half Broken Hill was laid idle, and the output of these mines has been reduced by £650,000. During the past two months' there has been the coal strike, and the output has been reduced by over 1,300,000 tons, worth to the consumers a good round millinn, and Ihe absence of which has checked trade to a considerable amount. But prior to November the colliery strikes and interruptions ware well-nigh innumerable, and we should have had probably 2,000,000 tons more marketed coal in this State, but for these troubles. The greatest sufferers have without doubt been the men who struck and the labour which depended on them. Prom first to last, labour in this State has suffered far over £1,000,000 in lost wages by these various strikes, and there is no prospect of recovering that amount. As for the coal strike, the leaders selected the moment when 'the stocks ip Melbourne were very luw, and the stocks in Sydney and Brisbane were the same. The time was opportune to kick pretty hard'—to use their own words. Yet the world-old rule has held good that no man or section of the community is essential, and it is not in the power of any one industry to bring the country to its knees, however much they may seek to proclaim themselves invincible. The railways, shipping, gasworks, and factories have suffered;" but it is truly astonishing the business which has been put through in spite of the strike. 'lhe strikers counted upon bringing the country to a standstill, and chose their- own time for a coup de-etat, and the only people brought to an absolute standstill have been the strikers themselves. That is a lesson the world has at times to teach, but let us hope the instruction will not need oftentimes repeating in this State. The benefactor to labour is he who increases the year's pay. How have the labour leaders shaped in that particular?" The fines of £IOO imposed by Judge Heydon a couple of weeks ago on the 13 members of the delegate board are still one of the principal topics of discussion amongst the miners, says the Newcastle representative of the "Sydney Morning Herald.'" Beyond their outburst in the Court, the men convicted have not made any public pronouncement as to whether they intend to try and raise the money; but there is some talk of a subscription list being opened to save them from going to gaol. At a meeting of miners at Speirs Point, Liake Macquarie, a resolution was carried, "That this meeting of residents of Spiers Point and outlying districts views with disgust the ex treme penalties imposed upon the! delegates of the Colliery Employees' Federation, relative to the alleged breach of the Industrial Act." 0:e of the speakers (Mr A. Teece), aaid that the federation was not going to pay. the fines, and neither would any of the convicted men.