SHIPPING STRIKE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10276, 1 July 1911, Page 5

SHIPPING STRIKE

A PKOPQSEO AGREEMENT. DISTURBANCES AT HULL. (Received Last Night, 10.55 o'clock) LONDON, June 30. Mr Askwith presided over a Conference of fifty Hull shipowners and men's delegates, who included seamen, fireman, dockers, lightermen, and coal porters. Terms were agreed upon for a Saturday half -holiday for dockers, and a half-day weekly for sailors and firemen. The masters agreed not to compel a man to have a. federation ticket. The weekly wages were fixed at 32s 6d, being an advance of 2s 6d. The .monthly wage was fixed at 90s for sailors, and 95s for firemen The men's leaders .submitted a i.'.oposal for settlement. A crowd of 12,000 asembled outside of the Station Hotel, where Mr Ask/with "delivered a speech, in which he stated that the men's representatives endorsed the agreement, also a large committee of workers, who had been consulted. The crowd, however, greeted the proposal to accept with shouts of "NoI No! We will starve first rather than go back to our employ--ers." The dockers, who in the majority, were particularly insistent against (the. agreement. (Received Last Night, 11.55 o'clock) LONDON, June 30. It is directly apparent that the. | agreement will be rejected. Two thousand strikers went to the Albert Dock with a view to boarding [ the steamer Calypso, to bring ashore 1 some supposed non-Unionists. The . attack was unexpected, and all the police were engaged guarding the Station Hotel. Four of the North Eastern Railway policemen were roughly handled in endeavouring to explain to the strikers that they were under a misaapprehensioni regarding those working 'on Ithe Calypso. One hundred and ten policemen marching at double, came to the rescue. Using their batons freely, they drove the strikers to a bridge, from where they threw stones, bricks, and broken bottles. . The police charged up the steps. After .the charge .seventeen police and strikers were taken to the hospital. There were many others injured. The strikers also wrecked the exterior of the Shipping Federation's free labour bureau, and Wilson's, shipping offices. They are now parading the town wrecking lamp posts and tearing up the flagstones. Early in the day 4000 women, many carrying babies, assembled at the offices of the Independent Labour Party, where a distribution of grocery tickets was made. A free fight ensued upon the discovery that some of the women were wives of men in full work. The police intervened, and the distribution was stopped."