Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-07-17
NEW CASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES.
The Miners strike.

/ NEW CASILE, NEW SOUIA WALES
The Miners strike.
Over 8, 900 miners ere on strike for an
advance in wages. They have appealed to
the workmen of Australia for financial aid.
Wages in their district have been on a
steady decline since 1892 and in some cases
the fall has been fully so per cent. Er-
cepting few collieries which have con-
coded the terms, all other coal pits in this
district are idle.
The town Of Newcastle itself wears o
mournful appearance, and as is usual dur
ing industrial upheavals all kinds of rumors
are floating about. The output OF the col
lieries working is scarcely, If it is, sufficient
to supply the intercolonial demand. Dur
ing the week Sneddon's collieries agreed to
the demands Of the miners. A rumor was
about that the proprietors of the Mimi
mines intended to send the steamer Duck
enfield on voyage to West Australia for
the purpose of importing a load of scabs If
they could be obtained. Coal is steadily
going up in price already, having been
raised IS. per ton, whilst the opinion Of
many miners is that all coal production
should cease, and arrangements are being
made to approach the Southern miners on
this subject. There are no scabs in the
Newcastle district, and the Goa
Barons know it. They are relying on
starvation to play their cruel game, but it
won't work with the miners of N. 8. w.
as well as they expect this time. From
all appearances this strike is going to last
for some time. The coal miners, having
made up their minds to the course they in
tend to pursue are not the men to easily
back down. They have always been in the
van of the fighting section of trade unionists
both in Australia and Great Britain. On
the other side stand the Coal Barons, who
have accumulated the miners withheld
wages, living on the fat of the land and
playing waiting game, in the hopes Of
starving the real producer Of wealth to big
sweet will, unctuously plausible to pins
point, saying even now, with heartless
brutality, that they are perfectly indiffer-
emit as to what the men ask for. All they
know is that the men will go back to work
for less wages than they were receiving be-
fore the strike, and so Labor and Capital
ism stand confronting each other in battle
array.
Between sixty and seventy sailing vessels
are lying in Newcastle Harbor eager to be
loaded with coal, which they cannot get
until the industrial battle now in full vigor
has ceased and Labor once more resumes
the pick.
The miners Of Newcastle have been
driven to this strike by repeated reductions
in their wages. True, vague promise has
been given that if they would continue
work the colliery proprietors would take
their case into consideration next Sep.
TENDER. That was the reply the miners
received to the request for an Australian
living wage. Only the promise that their
case would be considered and nothing
more. The treatment which these
miners have received at the hands
of the colliery proprietors during
the past five or six years
has been shameful. To victimise the men
who stood up for their rights was daily
and hourly occurrence. With devilish
the coal barons have laid pits
idle to subdue the spirits of the men and
prevent them from combining in unity for |
mutual protection Sin order to bring a
of wages peacefully about, - as
was recently stated at a meeting in Lon
don of the fat shareholders of the Lambton
colliery. Wages were brought down, too,
with vengeance, averaging during tie
past four years only Ell l3s. Id per week,
and from which had to be deducted the
cost ofpowder, tallow, repairs to tools ETC.,
Is. house rent S., doctor and lodge Is.
which left to the miner, his wife,
md, say, four children, about
i'd per day for each to be
clothed and fed. The experience of the
miners with colliery proprietors and man
,gers have made them desperate, and 90
wonder, when forced to accept such condi-
ions as these. For this state of affairs
hone should be blamed but the stubborn
Coal Barons who are trying to do their best
% degrade the Australian coal miner to the
evel of the Russian serf. But with all the
lespotism Of the Coal Barons the spirit OF
he Newcastle miner is yet unconqueyed,
md he is now fighting for fair play, not
,nly for himself but for his wife and little
mao danandinp IN him