THE RIOTS IN ROTTERDAM.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 359, 3 October 1889, Page 2

THE RIOTS IN ROTTERDAM.

FIRING ON THE MOB.

ENGLISH DOCK LABORERS IMPORTED TO SUPPLANT STRIKERS. London, October 1. Daring fhe disturbances caused by the strikes in Rotterdam, which arose through the dock laborers wanting higher wages, tbe police fired upon tbe mob, aud then charged them with fixed bayonets.

The message does not s‘ate whe'her any of the strikers were killed or wounded. The police fired upon the mob because the latter attacked them with stones.

The dock laborers want a rise of twopence halfpenny an hour. The strikers have excluded the Socialists from participating in the movement, thus securing for their cause sympathy which would otherwise be lost. For purposes that may ba well understood a report has been published to the effect that Mr Burns has forwarded the strikers a f w hundred pounds out of the London strike funds, so as to enable them to carry out their object.

Mr Burns has made a denial of the report. LATER.

The dock laborers have been offered fonrpence an hour, but they persist in their d* mand for fivepence. English dockmen are being imported to supply the places of the strikers.

Rotterdam, after Amsterdam, is the largest- city in tbe Netherlands and the most extensive seaport in the kingdom. It. lies in the province of South Holland, 36 miles south-west of Amsterdam. The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in commerce, which is the mainstay of the city* It makes a large export to the Dutch eastern possessions and to the West Indies, and also carries on an extensive trade with Great Britain, America, France, Soain, Portugal, and the northern states of Europe. £— MR MURRAY ON THE LONDON DOCK LABORERS. In a sketch written for the Melbourne Age on the condition of the London dock laborers Mr David Christie Murray sa-vr :—The men are probably the worst paid of anv London workers. This in itself is hardly remarkable, for the labor is of the simplest kind, and any wayfaring man, though a fool, will not err therein if he have but the requisite muscle. Taking the whole year through I suppose that there are a round hundred seeking work every morning for any seventy who secure it, and this alone is enough to keep the prices in the labor market at a very low ebb indeed. All the year round, week in, week out, any Londoner who cares to see the show may witness an actual fight for bread upon the pavement outside any of the London docks. The men are admitted by ticket, and the tickets are thrown over the dock wall amongst the crowd of waiting laborers, I have seen a stand up fight or two over a ticket whioh would give its holder a right to earn the merest bodily subsistence for a day. In thslush and rain of winter mornings, and in the tranquil dawn of summer davs, I have seen that bitter strife for bread. I write here under the Southern Cross, the whole diameter of the world away, and I know that but for the sudden frost and paralysis whioh has fallen on those familiar places the fight would have been fought again this mnrn'ng. would have renewed itself an hour after mid. day, and would once again have been fought to morrow. Let things take what course they will, the strife will find a renewal by and by, and will go on day by day and year by year until by some miracle the surplus population is cleared out of the Eant End of London. The dense ignorance which lay like a cloud over a great mass of the town and country population of England a quarter of a a cantury ago has perhaps been dissipated somewhat too rapidly. Light falling upon eyes too long accustomed to darkness is apt to he a little dazzling. We have no right to be surprised if some of the social leaders who have sprung from the ranks of the people see men as trees walking. We have no right tn he surprised if many of the remedies proposed for the existing state of things are incoherent, dangerous or absurd. It is not the new fledged socialist who is to blame for the half views he takes, but the unwisdom or ill fortune of his ancestors and ours, which denied him the power to read and reason generations earlier. Considering how very nevz the science of politics is to many of these people, considering further what a weight they bear upon their shoulders, and what they see of contrasting luxury about them, the real wonder lies in their moderation their self restraint and their respect for vested interests. I have seen no more noticeable characteristic in the many conflicts between capital and labor which have taken place in England in my time than the patience and the obedience to law displayed by great bodies of hungry men. Whether that patience will last for ever is a question which forces itself upon the mind with a troublesome insistence. Whether we like it or no, the old fashions by whioh the world was ruled are changed or changing. That giant of democracy whose growth is to some a terror, and to some the only hope the world affords, is partly free of his ancient shackles, If he were only sure of himself, he might do what he would. There is a seething unrest in the old world, and an oppression of misery, which at no distant date may force him to be terrible. It is at least worth the world’s while to try and he wise in time, fnr the world’s collective wisdom, or its collective want of i% mav make democracy a new and more terrible Frankenstein’s monster, or teach it to ba an angel of blessing to mankind.