Through The Comrades’ Eyes

THAT such wickedness could be! The following extract is from the Sydney Communist newspaper, Tribune, of May 10: Just what imperialism means in ex ploitation of native labour can be seen aboard the motor vessel Kofala, tied up at Storey & Keers’ shipyards, Balmain.

The vessel is owned by British imperialist interests which run and control the Solomon Islands. It is manned by a crew of Solomon Islanders getting the princely sum of £6 a month.

Until friendly Australian shipyard workers brought them old pairs of long pants recently, the natives were shivering in Sydney’s cold weather in the short pants provided by their indifferent imperialist bosses; The miserable £6 a month, it might be pointed out, is the overseas wage. When they are at home the benevolent owners give the native seamen only £2/10/- a month.

A shipyard worker who drew the Tribune’s attention to the Kofala said that natives have been in Sydney away from their families for over three months.

“They are ‘free’ to go into the city but they don’t get far at our prices with 30a week,’’ the worker said.

“Quite anart from the way they’re ex ploited, recently when one of the boys asked for some eggs to vary their diet he was told by one of the whites that ‘hens don’t lay eggs for black men’.”

In early June at All Saints, Wollahara, Miss Angela Hunter, daughter of the late Mr. A. J. Hunter of New Guinea, and Mrs.

H. R Wales of Rose Bay, was married to Mr John Carrick of Bellvue Hill.