ANGLO-COLONIAL NEWS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 519, 16 October 1890, Page 3

ANGLO-COLONIAL NEWS.

(teTAB SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) London, August 20. IKGLISH DOCKERS ON THE AUSTRALIAN STRIKE. The anniversary of the dockers’ strike was celebrated in Hyde Park on Sunday by a mammoth derr.on-tra’ion of all sorts and conditions of Uuioni?ts. Speeches were made by the strike leaders from some seven or eight different p atforms. and in the course of them frequent lefennces occurred to the help received from Australia. Mr F. Wiggington (of the Lightermen’s Union) said the Australian worker had shamed the English working man, but they had Dow a chance of showing their practical sympathy. Io Australia there was a tremendous strike in the shipping trade, which involved thousands and thousands of men. It was now l/teir bouudet: du'y to put their bands in their pockets, and send over an immense rum of money to their brethren across the ses, which wou'd encourage them the same as their loving messages encouraged the dockers in England. These generous sentiments were, I regret to say, received with but moderate enthusiasm, and found no echo in the remarks of subsequent speakers. Even Jno. Burns, whilst admitting the Strike Committee bad received £37,000 odd from the Australians, passed over the ticklish subject of the present shipping trouble at the Antipodes

Tern Mann made a. long and important speech, the most sigt ificarit prints of which were his rtference to the approaching developments of international union among dock workers. He did not set a limit t f time for the bringing about of bis programme, which is extensive enough to cover simultaneous action cf dockers both at Home and at the antipodes, so that a ship loaded by •’ blacklegs ” in Adelaide, or Chris’r-hurch, or Dur.elin, ean be blocked by telegram in London, and the Union men at the London docks will refuse to di.chaige her cargo.

* BUMtB BXVIEWB THE SITUATION. John Burns’s speech was. to begin with, a brief but striking record of the organisa i n and work of the D ’ekers’ Union, which now, be explained, numbered 58 000 members with a yearly income cf £2B 000, derived from a weekly subscription of 21 each member. They had a halfpenny monthly paper, to which the dockers contributed the paragraph* and editorials, —(larghter and •• hear, bear," .—with a mreolation of 30,000 Or the total membership of the Union, 24 000 were connected with the port of London, and every docker, in fse’, was a member cf the Union. (Cheers.) No t-ake*. no work. (Hear, bear.) That was a principle. In _ London alone, during the past year the inarea.a in the dockers' wsg-s amounted to £3OO 000. In the country the rhe fad b»en gres'er linn in London, and taking the 58 000 members they had received in the past year in the aggregate £700,000 mure in wages than • previous!.,- (Cheers.) Materially they had each gained 5s per week more, while they had also received kinder treatment from foremen end managers. He denied that the extra wage, had been spent in fun and drink, as Mr Norwood—(groans)—had prophesied it would be. He claimed* that the dockers had improved mora'lv and intellectually since the strike. They bsd conducted 180 strikes, of which they had won 179. (Cheers ) They had picvented the trade of London being diverted to other ports because of cheaper labor, by getting the dockers to join th” Union ; and at Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol, Hull, Goole, Grimsby and other outpoits the dockers Were actually receiving h'gher wages than their London brethren. They were not, in London, going in for another strike, but by mesne of co-r pera' ion the dockers meant to take from rhe shipper, the broker, and the contractor, the hading aud unloading of ships altogether. (Gieit cheering.) This they would do within the next 12 months. (Cheers.) This was no idle talk or vapouring, because already the London lightermen had 47 barges which they owned In common, and were working for their common benefit. (Ch°ers.) Then, in London alone since the deck strike there were 300,000 more Trade Unionists, men and women, than before. Nearly 300 Unions had been resuscitated and improved in ihat period. He Claimed too ths* the railway workers io Great Britain had, during the past year, shared in higher wages a millinn sterling more than previously; and he added that throughout the country the seven millions of adult male workers engaged in active production had gained 30 millions of solid pounds ster ing as a result of the impelU 6 of the dook strike. (Prolonged cheering.) Again, the Metropolitan police, though nominally defeat d through bad management in thrir late strike, had since practically gained their demands ; and ths City police, who arranged matters better because of ’heir contact wiih the deck Strikers—(laughter)—obtained a minimum rise of 4r per week. The postmen had failed through their cowardice and the treachery of some amongst them, but the soldiers had done better than any of them. Six men had been cent to prison, (Cries of •• Shame.”) Why shame ? If they did not. count the cost why did they undertake th» job? They would have time to rsfl-ct, and they would have, in the meantime, no drill sergeants to bully them. (“ Hear, hear,” and laughter.) He was convinced that the stand the soldiers, and the sailors too, had made against petty tyranny would henceforth relieve the Army and Navy from rad-tapeiem, pettifogging regulations and brutal treatment. (“ Hear, hear.”) This sort of thing might have done at the time nt Waterloo, but an educated soldiery would pot tolerate it. (•' H“ar, hear ” and cheer«.) Mr Burns then went on to make a proposition which, if he carnet it out, will be a convincing proof of his sell-sacrifice and disinteres’edness. Hitherto, I must frankly confess I have never felt any particular enthusiasm for, or believe in, the great strike leader. Ha has - always seemed to me a clever, amblttbr.s Radical. who saw in the dockers’ troubles his personal opportunity and utili-ed circumstances se'fishly to the fuHnt ex'ent. Even - Burnt’ mast ardent worshippers cannot overlook the fact that whereas two years ago he was an indifferently successful anisan, able only (acnording to his own account) to earn 40« B week, he is now a public man, liberally supported by the public purse, with an actual seat on the Cnunty Council and a prospective one in Parliament. Ou Sundav, however, Burns (whe’her for rhetoric effect pr because ha meant it, remains to be seen) ottered to forego all these advantages and to perambulate the enun'ry in a caravan for ‘ fits years in order to get at the unskilled < laborers al the root, organising them, procuring them higher wages, and so preventing them from swarming up to London. This wou’d be a noble and self-sacrificing, but ungrateful task, audit Burns carries it out faithfully, instead of presently discovering he can be more useful in the Council aud in Parliament, I will abuse myself before the the popular demagogue and cry pecc vi. Meanwhile 'tis an edifying thing to hear some of the smaller men attached to the Union discuss Burns.

Though the fact is not reported in any of the newspapers, I hear Burna did make Mferenoe to the Australian strike in his speech on Sunday, saying he regretted be could not go out to lend personal help and assistance, and waving a flag bearing the Ipgeud “ Advance Australia. I an) aho assured numerous fl.gs and banners were carried bearing as a device the English and working man shaking bands korou the sea.