this way things had gone on at the shipping ports for about two years from
the failure of the gold miners' strike at Waihi, before anything happened
to open the eyes of the public to the real meaning of what The Federation
of Labor had been doing. In that time the new Unions at each of the
principal ports of the country had quietly obtained the entire control of
the hands at waterside and local shipping, as well as of the Carters
Unions. The time had arrived when the syndicalists believed themselves
able to compel the public to submit to any demands they might see fit to
make.

The occasion finally arose, as might have been expected, at Wellington,
where the Federation of Labor had established its head-quarters. There was
no definite dispute between the employers and workers, but for a few weeks
there had been an uneasy feeling in relation to the Waterside Workers who,
it was said, were growing more lazy and slovenly in handling cargo on the
wharves and piers. A meeting had been called by The Federation to discuss
some grievances of the coal miners at Westport, from which most of the
coal landed in Wellington is brought. The meeting was called for the noon
dinner hour, and a number of the waterside workers engaged in discharging
cargo from a steamer about to sail, at once went to the meeting, and did
not return to work in the afternoon. The shipping company at once engaged
other men to finish their work, and when the men came back some hours
later, they found their places filled up. The new men belonged to the same
Union, but the men dispossessed demanded that the new ones should be
dismissed at once. When the company refused the demand, the men appealed
to the Council of the Federation, who at once called on the Waterside
Workers and Seamens Unions at Wellington to cease work. Within a few days
the position looked so serious that the Premier invited both parties to a
conference, at which he presided in person, in the hope of bringing about
an agreement to refer the matters in dispute to an arbitrator to be