THE DECISION OF THE SEAMEN'S AND FIREMEN'S UNION
"Don't think, my beauty, that we are going to ship you to those German friends of yours at Stockholm."
The following telegram, signed by Mr. Havelock Wilson as President of the Sailors' and Firemen's Union, has been sent to the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates in Petrograd:
Comrades, I am instructed by the Committee of the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union of Great Britain and Ireland, representing 100,000 organized seamen, to inform you that we have decided not to work on any ship which conveys delegates to Petrograd or Stockholm until such delegates give an undertaking in writing that no war settlement can be made with Germany until the German Government make restitution to the relatives of Allied and neutral seamen who have been murdered when endeavouring to escape from their sinking ships that were torpedoed by German submarines. We desire that you will make inquiries as to the noble part played by the British Seamen's Union towards the Russian revolutionary party in 1905 and 1906, when, you will find, we were the true friends of Russian democracy.
June, 1917.