The 1913 Vancouver Island Miners Strike
by Jack Kavanagh (continued)
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SUMMARY
Sept., 1912A
miner named Mottishaw is discriminated against by the Canadian Collieries
(Dunsmuir), Ltd., for carrying out the law as laid down in the Coal Mines
Regulation Act.
Sept. 17, 1912The
miners at Cumberland are "locked out" by the company for taking a holiday
in which to consider this matter.
Sept. 19, 1912The
same action is followed at the mines at Extension, owned by the same
company.
Sept. 24, 1912Special
police are sent into the camps to force the Asiatics to resume work on the
Company's terms.
Oct., 1912More
police are sent in, mainly to annoy and harass the strikers.
Sept., 1912Premier
McBride, Minister of Mines, refuses to interfere, although the company is
ignoring the Coal Mines Regulation Act.
Sept. 30, 1912A
communication to the Minister of Labor at Ottawa, asking "if there is any
remedy," is practically ignored.
1913A resolution
introduced into the Provincial Legislature, asking that an enquiry be held
in connection with the trouble is defeated.
May, 1913Complaints
from Cumberland, reactions of special police, are ignored.
May 3, 1913Western
Fuel Co. allowed to use courthouse, Nanaimo, for purpose of taking ballot
on question of returning to work.
On Aug. 18th, while the Union is holding a
meeting in order to ballot on a similar question, they are surrounded by
troops, marched out of the hall in groups of ten, and subjected to
considerable indignities.
On July 19th, sixteen strikebreakers went
into Cumberland with the intention of causing trouble, none of them were
arrested for so doing.
A number of strikers, however, were arrested as a
result of this visit.
On Aug. 9th a striker, living in Ladysmith,
was stabbed by one among a party of four strikebreakers, while proceeding
home in company with a fellow miner, the police refusing to arrest the
assailants until compelled to do so.
On the same date, in Nanaimo, officials of the
Western Fuel Co. were going around endeavoring to secure strikebreakers.
At this time the militia in Vancouver and Victoria
had received orders to hold themselves in readiness for service.
On the miners of Nanaimo notifying Attorney-General
Bowser of their ability to preserve peace if be withdrew the special
police, he replied by ordering out the militia.
The only persons arrested have been strikers and
those who sympathised with them, although in almost every instance the
trouble has been commenced either by strikebreakers or special police.
No strikebreakers have been seriously injured by
any of the strikers, yet a striker, a mere boy, is charged with attempted
murder. On the contrary no attempt has been made to arrest any of the
strikebreakers for shooting Baxter.
The venue for the trials was changed to New
Westminster and the jury chosen from among the ranchers of that district,
men whose minds were first biased by the lying reports in the newspapers
of Vancouver and the lower mainland, and secondly by the interview given
to the press by Judge Howay.
This pamphlet has not been written as an apology
for anything the strikers may have done. Even had they been guilty of all
the crimes charged to them by a prostituted press still no apology would
be offered.
The blame for all that has occurred on Vancouver
Island rests upon the representatives of the master class, who are in
power at Victoria and Ottawa, and in the last analysis, upon those members
of the working class who gave them that power.
If this but enlightens the reader, ever so
slightly, as to the real function of governments, and interests him to the
extent of desiring to learn more about his position in human society, it
will have served the purpose for which it was written.
The emancipation of the wage-slaves will not fall,
like manna, from heaven. Nor yet will they be led into freedom, as into
the promised land, by inspired leaders of mankind.
The workers will only be freed by those whose
interest it is to do sothe workers themselves.
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