* * * The strike of fruit porters at Covent
Garden drags on.
The employers and merchants are still finding plenty of ways and means of conveying their goods to the retailers without the porters, and the men are therefore in a diffi- culty. Consequently, Mr. Bevin made an effort to extend the strike to the ports and to issue an embargo upon all fruit produce destined for the market. The port authori- ties at once declared that this was a distinct breach of the agreement reached last spring, which forbade any stoppage without a month's notice. Mr. Bevin, on his side, denied that the Dockers' Union had ever relinquished its right of sympathetic action with another Union. He agreed, however, to postpone the dockers' embargo pending an invitation by Sir David Shackleton of the Ministry of Labour to the employers to lay their case before the Department. The next development was the refusal of the employers, for the second time, to do this. Sir David Shackleton then used his powers, under the Industrial Courts Act, 1919, to appoint a Court of Inquiry on the causes and circumstances of the dispute. Both the Union and the employers are willing to put their case before this body, and it is unlikely that there will be any fresh development while the Court is sitting.
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