Evening star., 1912-11-09
Misery Still Poignant.

dockland to more exciting scenes, but
the unexciting misery left behind by the
strike is very little less than it was
Going about the streets where the dockers
live-and they are probably most con-
centrated in the district bordered on the
one side by Commercial road east and
on the other by the rivera stranger
might imagine from outward indications
that things are much as usual. The So
cial workers, especially the clergy, will
tell you different story.
They tell you of streets where half
the houses are still without a stick of
furniture, of babies brought to be
christened without stitch of clothing,
wrapped in a corner of mother S
shawl, and of scores of barefooted chill
dren in the schools. The outlook is
particularly bad just now. When the
strike was over there was, of course,
glut of work at the docks, which
were crammed with ships waiting to be
unloaded, and although by no means
all the strikers were taken back there
was for the time plenty of employment.
The arrears have now been worked
er's official said today. There won't
be much doing until they come back"
Money Very Scarce.
At present few of the transport work
ers are doing more than two or three
days work a week. and money is very
scarce. The distress will probably be-
come steadily worse for some time, and
every one in the East End is fearing a
winter of suffering The lockers are
managing to scrape along at present.
and l am told that there is a wonder
full amount of charity among the poor
est-a man who Is doing several days
work a week sparing a little food for
III 81 ho 10 oil
on The relief funds are now nearly
all exhausted, and as public interest is
lessened it is difficult to raise sub
scriptions.
The most faithful evidence of the dis
tress is to be found at the offices OF the
Dockers' Union in the Mile End road,
where the fund for the redemption of
pawn tickets has been administered.
This fund is now closed. Nearly four
thousand applications were made. and
it was only possible to help about 1900
of the cases. The pawn tickets actu-
ally redeemed were $3.50. Some fam
lilies sent in as many as twenty tlckets,
all for small amounts, representing the
pursued was to help the people get
back their beds and bedding first OF
ali, and then other things in the order
Of Importance.
Letters Tell of Distress.
In a back room of the office you may
see a huge pile of letters, sent with the
tickets, full of the most moving stories
of distress, a sort of epitome of the trag-
edy of the strike. The union officials say
that thousands OF men have been reduced
to the position of casual workers. and the
hardest cases are those of the permanent
men of the port of London authority
who find their old safe employment
turned into a precarious one. These men
had the most to lose, but all down the
scale the position Of the lockers Is worse
today than it was before the strike.
| One hears many stories Of victimization
| which one hopes the port of London au-
| thority for the sake of it's good name
will inquire into. Lord Davenport def
nitely promised that there should be nc
| yictimization as result of the strike
| Thousands Of men taken on from outside
during the strike have been turned away
and most of them have remained in the
East End and are helping to make the
general poverty more acute. The mems s
leaders now hardly make any secret OF
| their opinion that the strike was a mis-
take, that it was fought on badly chosen
ground and should have been averted al
the start Its failure has intensified every
problem of East End life and will dc
| so for some time.
L. H. MOORE