The Coalminers’ Strike.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 208, 13 October 1888, Page 3

The Coalminers’ Strike.

HOPEFUL SIGNS. (FBOM OUB OWN COBREStONDENT.) Sydney, October, 3. Some interesting developments have occurred in connection with the Newcastle strike. The Stockton Company withdrawing from the position of the associated coalowners, have adopted an agreement which is acceptable to the miners, and the pit starts work to-day. Most of the directors of the northern mines are Sydney men, and I am given to understand that there is a very general feeling among the non-associated collieries in favor of adopting a similar course. Newcastle, Wallsend, and West Wallsend, are working or making preparations to work with non-union labour, so that the pressure on both masters and miners is becoming very severe. The former are in danger of losing their and the latter their employment. Mr Melville, the member for Northumberland, who has the reputation of being the most effective “ stump ” speaker in the colony, is taking a very energetic part in the settlement of the dispute. The Stockton agreement was in a great measure brought about by his diplomacy. The accredited officers of the miners, headed by Mr Curley, their Secretary, are aggrieved at being superseded by Mr Melville. They wished to refer the question, as to whether the Stockion men should go to work, to an aggregate meeting of the miners. But the lodges decided by a majority that no suih meeting was necessary.' The Stockton nw were so eager to get to work that they declared they would withdraw from the Union rather than remain idle any longer. One pound strike pay in five weeks is not satisfactory to honest hard working men who feel themselves capable of earning a good living. Meanwhile the relations between the paid Secretary and the self-constituted representative are becoming very strained. Mr Melville declares that Mr Curley has bungled matters. Mr Curley says that the miners should aceord their duly constituted officers an expression of confilence, the most important feature of which, in his opinion no doubt, would bc| he warning-off of interlopers. So far, however, the expressions of opinion have been all the other way.