Hot Springs Weekly Star

MASTERS AND PILOTS REFUSE
TO GO TO WORK.

Lake Carriers Disappointed—They Had Supposed the Matter Settled—Referendum Vote is Adverse—All Negotiations Are Declared Off.

A Cleveland, O., special announces that President Livingstone, of the Lake Carriers' Association, Friday night issued a lengthy statement concerning the four weeks' conference which ended in a total failure to agree with the Masters and Pilots Association. After detailing the points which have been made public before, he tells of the last session, when the advisory board of the Masters and Pilots, after listening to the arguments of the owners, agreed that the offer of last year's wages was fair, and that they would go back to their different lodges or harbors and use every effort to have it accepted.

The owners felt confident that this action on the part of the advisory board would result in a settlement, so much so, indeed, that the manager of the largest lake fleet announced his appointments of masters. To his great surprise he was notified Friday morning by District Captain Howell that none of his masters would appear. Howell further announced that as the referendum vote had been against the acceptance of the proposed wage scale, all negotiations that had been had were declared off, and that they would not sail any boat except upon the stringent conditions and the schedule which they originally presented, with a full season's pay: an increase to masters of almost 14 per cent on the largest vessels, and a much greater increase on smaller: also that the matter of wages would be increased so as to give them pay for a full season regardless of when they report for duty.

Mr. Livingstone adds:

"The lake carriers can only lament a condition by which of an average crew of about twenty, three men, by virtue alone of the government licenses, are tying up the entire business of the lakes, and this, including the men trusted as the personal representatives of the owners, vested by law with high and responsible powers; action which is stopping wages to the amount of many thousands of dollars each day to the vessel crews, and said to deprive not less than 100,000 men of employment in the various branches connected with the traffic."