"TO WIPE SLATE CLEAN."

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

"TO WIPE SLATE CLEAN."

WHAT THE MEN ARE PREPARE? TO DO. An official statement was made yesterday morning to a pressman by Mr G. G. Farland, secretary of the Waterside Workers' Union. Mr Farland said that as far as the local union was concerned every endeavour herl been made to settle the dispute in a equitable manner, but it now seemed to the majority of the waterside workers that the fight was not on the question of the present conditions being maintained, but was an, endeavour by "the great octopus <i F New Zealand, the Union Steam Ship Company," to drive the workers into a condition of servitude. "We consider that this is a public figlit, the same as is going on in America at the present time, against the great national trust, which has been the cause of raising the cost of living in New Zealand," continued Mr Farland. It" has succeeded through the advance in wages given under the late agreement, in raising

fares and freights, and how it is endeavouring to reduce, by insidious means, the cost of running its fleet.

"Aa. far as we are concerned, we will not be reduced to a condition of servitude. If Mr Massey thinks that he is able, by use of special constables, to baton the workers back to a condition of servitude under this great trust, he has made the greatest mistake of his political life. The waterside workers will not be coerced into this condition. They are willing to resume work under the late agreement, and wipe the slate clean, but they want it understood that, notwithstanding the power of any set of capitalists, or of any Government which may be working in their interests, the watersiders will not be driven back to work. We are prepared to fight on. Hundreds of offers have been received from, women in Wellington to find the wherewithal to live, provided only that the men are firm in their stand to retain th© ooaditione they had won,"