The Ships Are Seized

The crisis had come. For a month the vital arteries of Great Lakes shipping had been blocked by the strike of the Canadian Seamen's Union. The embolism, choking off coal shipments from the U.S. to Canada, now threatened to cripple Canadian industry. Last week the Canadian Government announced seizure of the strikebound shipping companies. It was the second seizure since war's end, one of the few in Canadian history.

Three days later the Government, through Shipping Controller Captain E. S. Brand of the Royal Canadian Navy, began to operate 100-odd ships belonging to 29 companies. The Upper Lakes and St. Lawrence Navigation Co., which signed with the Seamen's union, will still sail its own ships. The Government was operating only freighters, leaving the passenger lines, which normally do a big business with U.S. tourists, at the docks. While Captain Brand runs his ships a Government-appointed Commissioner will mediate the dispute itself.

The seamen hailed this as a victory, with reason. As the ships sailed again, the crews were on an eight-hour instead of a 12-hour day, which had been one of the chief bones of contention.

Similarly, the C.I.O. Woodworkers' Union came out ahead in settlement of the five-weeks' strike of 37,000 West Coast lumbermen. The workers won a 15-c--an-hour raise and a 44-hour week.

Showdown Ahead. But this was the only note of peace in the labor-management strife. Some 55,000 key workers in Canadian industry were on strike, or were ready to walk out. In steel, 15,000 steelworkers were negotiating for a 19 1/2 raise, with another 10,000 steel-fabricating workers waiting on the outcome. In Windsor and Chatham 3,500 Chrysler Corp. workers struck last week for a $2-a-day raise. Some 6,000 General Motors workers may follow them out this week. To all unions, the 15-c- boost for the lumbermen was the minimum they wanted.

But there was little indication that the Government planned to make any such increase in the national pattern, as the U.S. had done with18 1/2-c-. Rather than add to inflation by raising wages and then prices, as the U.S. had done, Canada still seemed to prefer to hold the line everywhere. There was but one significant concession: Labor Minister Humphrey ("Hump") Mitchell said that henceforth "just and reasonable" wage increases would be approved.

Some Canadians were not so sure that such a policy was enough. Last week the influential Conservative Toronto Globe & Mail angrily let fly at "Mitchell's muddling." Cried the paper: "The Labor Minister has bungled at every step! . . ." The next few weeks looked hellish for Hump--and maybe for Canada.

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