THE STRIKE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 2 December 1913, Page 6

THE STRIKE.

POSITION IX AUSTRALIA,

STATEMENT BY NEW ZEALAND

STRIKERS

(Received Dee. I,' 10 a.m.) SYDNEY, Doc. 1

The Labour Council has received an official statement I'nrn the strikers' organisation, in which the following clauses occur:—

"The Union lias agreed to resume work under the old agreement and maintain the status quo oji wages and conditions. The employers demand the iilmHtion of the union, and abrogation of the agreement, and the denial of the right of waterside workers as a. whole to organise into one union. Assistance lias been readily rendered by a large section of the general public, "which has shown sympathy and a desire for the watersiders- to maintain union. Thoy won't bo beaten into subjection by'the hardwood batons :uul revolvers of special constables who are really not the legitimate -police, with whom they have no quarrel. "Tin- committee gives the assurance that if the agreement is reinstated, and they are given a clean shite, work at the port will proceed apace asi if no interruption had taken place.

"The committee points out cases where employers charged with breach of agreement number 436, whereas the employees' breaches number 156. If, then, breach of agreement meant the abrogation thereof, there would ho not a single award in existence today,

"The committee sanction no rioting or disorder." ,

NEWS A PER OPINION

(Received Dec. 1, 10 a.m.) SYDNEY, Dec. 1. Tlw Herald soys: "The syndicalist method is on trial in New Zealand, and at present it is tho question whether it shall be tried in Australia also. An appeal has come from the leaders of tho movement in New Zealand, who are fast losing r* there, but who look to dragging in Australia as a last desperate resort. The real division between New Zealand and here has been not over the original grievance, but the method wherebv it was attempted to settle it. The frmdinalist leaders in New Zealand have given the world an object lesson in the syndicalist method of remedying, the grievances of twelve, men in. a New Zealand sea-port. We do not greatly fear an extension of the strike in "Sydney this week. A strike before next Saturday's elections would have one certain result, and the Labour leaders- are well aware of what that result would be."