A CHINESE STRIKE.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 1038, 3 November 1903, Page 4

A CHINESE STRIKE.

Melbourne’s Chinatown has been stirred to its depths lately by the strike and lockout in the Chinese furniture trade. The original cause of the trouble seems to have been the dislike of some of the employers to pay their debts to the timber and glass merchants. Somo got out of their liabilities by becoming bankrupt, others, haviDg wrung a modest fortune out of the Caucasian, left for China by the first available boat, without going through the formality of paying what they owed. The merchants, to protect themselves, cut down the credit they granted to Chinese manufacturers, and a number of tbe latter thereupon formed a union and offered to guarantee the timber and glass merchants against loss from any of their number. The merchants accepted the proposal and cut off all creditjto Chinese firms outside the union, thus making it difficult for workmen to set up in business for themselves. The nonunion manufacturers then went round the shops, telling the men that the action of their employers robbed them of any hope of being able to start as masters. The men in twelvo shops wore induced to strike, and as they remained obstinate, the other sixteen employers in the union locked their men out. The trouble between employers and employees was complicated by the existence of a number of firms outsido the employers’ combine, and by the question of wages that was imported into it by the men. But the little affair, like an industrial dispute, would never trouble the Oriental, and in this case the Chinese unemployed spent their time in the fantan shops, which did a roaring trade. Their leaders, however, tore themselves away from the fascinations of the gaming tables long enough to draw up a series of demands, which prpve that they firmly believe in asking for a lot on the chance of getting a little. The employers were to pay all the expenses of the strike, and to withdraw from the agreement with the merchants. Each employer in the union was to give a guarantee of £lO that he would not commit a breach of the rules of the workmen’s union, the guarantee in the case of the four officers to be £SO each, and each employer to pay another £2 to the workmen’s unioD, the guarantee in the case of the four officers to bo £SO each, and each employer to pay another £2 to tbe workmen’s union to m.ept the expenses of future troubles. Finally, the employers’ union was 11 to provide two roast pigs each weighing at least 801bs, to be used in the worship of the Joss.” That Joss and his attendants had evidently fine healthy appetites. It would add immensely to the popular interest in Conciliation Board and Arbitration Court proceedings if New Zoaland disputants introduced similar picturesque demands into their claims. Wo have yet to learn whether the Melbourne Chineso employers yielded to this remarkable demand for roast pig. Most of them are nominally Christians, and have forsworn Josses and all pagan practices, a fact whioh the workmon probably did not overlook when they maliciously made their claim.