The Latest Strike

More than 50,000 dockers are on strike in Cardiff, Bristol, Manchester, Southampton, London, Swansea, Grimsby, Hull, Liverpool and elsewhere. London is threatened with a serious shortage of food.

The men have gone out on strike against the advice of their leaders.

An agreement was signed last September providing for a reduction in salaries if the index figures for the cost of living fell. According to the Ministry of Labor returns the fall in the index figure was 10 points for the period September to July, so wages were reduced by one shilling a day. The men, however, refused to accept this reduction, claiming that the cost of living had not really fallen.

In the House of Commons, Will Thorne, Laborite, asked if the Minister of Labor, Sir Montague Barlow, was aware that there was a good deal of dissatisfaction with the way the cost of living figures were arrived at. The Minister replied that the figures were based on more than 5,000 returns from shopkeepers, including cooperative societies, all over the country. The prices, he said, were the average for the whole country and might not necessarily be applicable to a particular district.