THE RAND CRISIS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 31 July 1913, Page 5

THE RAND CRISIS.

CABLE NEWS

(Untied .Fru* Association—By BUcr trie Telegraph—Copynght.)

NO OUTWARD CHANCE. PRECAUTIONS BY GOVERNMENT (Received Last Night, 8.55 o'clock.) JOHANNESBURG, July 80. The situation is outwardly unchanged. Tjie Government has declined to reconsider the Labour demands. The Federation of Labour has refused the Government suggestion for a general ballot on the question l or a strike. Mr Connerty, President of the Railwaymen's Society, has accepted the Government's invitation for a joint commission to investigate the Labour grievances. This acceptance indicates a split between a section of the railwaymen and the Trades Federation. ' The Law Offices are considering the Federation's 1 manifestoes, in I which they are threatening to treat speaial constables as scabs, and are calling upon Labourites "to resign I from the citizen's force. . The Government anticipates that a large proportion of the railwaymen will join the strike, particularly in the workshops, but a number of therunning etatt' are believed to be loyal. It has been arranged for each train to carry armed men in front with a pilot engine, there being a fear of dynamite-being used; Vulnerable points of the railway route have been strongly guarded. Martial law will be proclaimed tii- : rectly a strike as declared. The Rand will be divided into zones, and patrolled by commandoes of, who will prevent large bodies of strikers from assembling simultaneously. The natives' will be marched to their territories under armed convoys. The Government feel that this step is essential, otherwise the natives might menace women and children. GOVERNMENT AND RAILWAYMEN. ■" (Received Last Night, 10.40 o'clock.) JOHANNESBURG, July 30. The Government is considering a scheme whereby railwaymen wili forthwith be asked to sign one for two years' service, accepting the Goern meat's recent offer as a basis of settlement of their grievances. Those refusing to sign will be asked to re- , sign. - It is calculated that at least seventy per centum will agree. Viscount Gladstone, in his. dispatches, declared that the course of events after June 30th showed that the strike leaders' counsels were set aside, and the strike was rushed, With no orderly organisation. The cessation of work, and the native at-, titude was full of perils. If reduced to idleness in massed compounds, and brought to starvation by the railway stoppage, it was only too probable that they would have broken loose. The horror of the situation could hardly be exaggerated. Every kraal in South Africa would hear of the white man's impotence. The Strike Committee has issued a circular, inviting strikers to come armed to the Benoni meeting, v Evidence, he says, was accumulating that the strikers intended to usej explosives. I Very little oheok was placed on the use of explosives in the mines. Any miner was able to appropriate dyna- v mite, with slight chahoe of detection.. The .military had been separated' into sixty-two detachments along the fifty miles of reef. Only six deachments fired. It was impossible for the Union Government to have dealt with -the situation with their own police and military, par-; ticularly as the latter were .mostly raw recruits, owing to the transition to a citizen force.' Viscount Gladstone added that he : intended to formally call his Ministens 5 attention to the lessons of the recent events, and he was sure they would realise that the Imperial troops were not retained in South Africa to dcthe work since June 30th.