THE ERA OF EXTRAVAGANCE 281 



officers sought to strengthen their position by affiliation with the 

 Trades Hall Council. In view of the average earnings of those 

 connected with their calling, they certainly had reasonable grounds 

 for asking for more pay, and in ordinary conditions would doubtless 

 have secured it. But employers, alarmed by the action of the 

 Seamen's Union in the Corinna case, decided that before granting 

 it they must make conditions for their own safety. They pointed 

 out, fairly enough, that it would be impossible to maintain the 

 discipline essential to the safety of life and property if marine 

 officers, placed as they were as the representatives of the owners, 

 were allied by union with the men serving under them. The 

 employers admitted that some revision of pay was called for, and 

 would be favourably entertained, but while they ran the risk of 

 officers and men combining against them, they could not consider 

 these demands with any sense of security. They therefore re- 

 quired as a preliminary the withdrawal of the former from the 

 labour organisation to which the men under them belonged. The 

 marine officers professed to see no impropriety in the connection, 

 firmly refused to withdraw, and on the 16th of August practically all 

 the members of that association came out, having given twenty-four 

 hours' notice. There were scores of candidates for their vacated 

 places, but in the instances where they were accepted seamen 

 refused to work under what they opprobriously termed " black- 

 legs," and a block was soon reached. There was nothing for it, 

 without undue risk of life and limb, but to suspend operations. On 

 the 18th of August there were no less than twenty-three steamers 

 lying idle in the Yarra, with the crews paid off, and the strike 

 fairly begun. 



The struggle was no longer in any way connected with the 

 question of wages. In the case of the shearers "and the seamen 

 alike it was now an assertion of the dominant rights of unionism, 

 and a refusal to allow non-unionists any rights at all. The marine 

 officers knew that there were men outside their Union capable of 

 filling their places, and a minority favoured the idea of severing the 

 connection with the Trades Hall, and accepting the promise of the 

 shipowners to favourably review the question of pay. But the 

 Trades Hall Council, counting the number of union chickens 



