Another Long Fight Probable

A "CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE"

[From Our Special Correspondent.]

BETHESDA, Tuesday.

A last look round Bethesda to-night has convinced me that none of the men will apply for work when the quarries are reopened to-morrow. All day long a steady stream of migration has been going on, until to-night Bethesda is inhabited principally by children and old people. The men have gone to all parts of Wales and the north, and on going away they seem convinced that nothing more will be done at Bethesda for a long time to come. There was some hope that Mr. Young's conciliatory attitude would bear some fruit in the direction of a move being made by the men to seek an interview; but even the intimation that I was able to give yesterday that the dismissed men had only to apply for work to get their claims considered by the management has been of no effect.

There seems to be a determination for the present to ignore anything coming from Port Penrhyn. Mr. Young has characterised this as "a conspiracy of silence" on the part of the men. I do not know how far this may be true, but it is quite evident that at present no man will approach him in any capacity whatever, and the ground on which the men do so is that nobody is anxious to make a mark of himself.

As for the dismissed men, they do not seem inclined to attach much importance to Mr. Young's offer. The whole position is obscured by a cloud of racial and religious prejudice. Each side distrusts the other, and there really seems to be nothing for it but another long fight, which, this time, may last even longer than that of 1896-97, because the men are getting work elsewhere, which will maintain them outside Bethesda.