Boot Trade Dispute July 27, 1895.

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, JULY 27, 1895.

Boot Trade Dispute.

Strikers still firm.

Concert and dance on Monday night a great success.

Only nine blacklegs could be obtained in Melbourne and Sydney.

List of donations held over until next week through pressure of space.

Non-unionist bootmakers coming up the coast had better look out for squalls. Rough sea on.

Fourteen navvies signed on at Melbourne to fill the places of the bootmakers. They left the Eartabla at Sydney. Great joy in Brisbane.

A correspondent at Jericho writes congratulating the bootmakers on their unity, and promises his custom to the co-operative factory, also agrees to supply the union with hides and take the amount out in boots.

When a young man was brought up at the Police Court for using bad language, and pleaded guilty, having been provoked by blacklegs, Joe Colings, the professed Radical, was at the lawyer's elbow. The professed Radical, when he left the court, said in a loud voice, in order that the people assembled might hear him, “We must make an example of these loafers” (no doubt meaning the unionists and their friends). “We” must make an example.

The Co-operative Boot Factory will be in full swing shortly. The Board of Management were balloted for on Tuesday, and the men selected are making all necessary arrangements. It is intended to have a central store for retailing the goods manufactured, and there's no doubt the Brisbane public will patronise the union made boots. There will be a registered trade mark and all goods produced will be stamped, so that customers may see that goods solid are union made.

The Deep Lead A.W.U. Pentland, held a minstrel entertainment and dance last Saturday in aid of the Brisbane bootmakers' strike fund, and realised the sum of £8 14s. The schoolroom was crowded, for the troupe, as amateurs, are making a name for themselves, and becoming deservedly popular. The first part of the entertainment was the usual songs, dances choruses and gags by the company. The second part was items by individual members of the troupe, and a side splitting farce concluded the concert. The stage and hall were then cleared for dancing, which was kept up till the wee sma'hours.