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 A dispute arose between the shipowners of Australia and the officers employed by them. These officers had formed an association, but had not been affiliated with the Trades and Labour Councils of Victoria and Sydney. The shipowners declined to treat with the officers and asked for delay. Some weeks elapsed; and during that time the Officers’ Association had become affiliated to the two Trades Councils named. Then the shipowners said that they declined to treat with the officers until the Officers’ Association was disaffiliated. The officers declined to do that. Their demands—“many of them, if not all, were just and fair,” according to Sir Robert Stout—were not agreed to, and they threatened to strike. The shipowners, saying that there was nothing to arbitrate about, declined to fall in with attempts to conciliate.

The officers’ strike in Australia was then declared. Some of the affiliated trades also struck, and the seamen of New South Wales, out of loyalty to their fellow-workers, joined the movement.

The Maritime Council of New Zealand consisted of branches of the Australian Union. It was the earnest desire of that Council to avoid a strike in New Zealand. The first trouble arose over the Waihora, when the wharf labourers in Sydney declined to work that vessel, as she was one of those owned by a company affiliated to the Shipowners’ Association. The Union Company appealed to the Maritime Council, and it promptly offered that the seamen should work the vessel. That was done.

But two other vessels belonging to the Union Company arrived in Sydney and the wharf labourers declined to work them also. This time, without waiting for the interference of the Maritime Council, the agent of the company employed non-union labourers. It was known that if that step was taken a general strike would result, and it did. The Maritime Council in New Zealand called out its men, and those affiliated with it joined, and New Zealand was the scene of a big strike.