POST-WAR CHANGES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 74, 8 January 1941, Page 3

POST-WAR CHANGES

NEW MINISTRY PLANNED MR CHURCHILL’S ACTION. (United Press Association—Copyright 1 LONDON, January 6. A Ministry is to be formed for the study of reconstruction and post-war problems. Until this is practicable—when the end of the war can more clearly be foreseen—this responsibility will be undertaken by the present Minister without Portfolio (Mr Arthur Greenwood), who meanwhile will be chairman of if group of Ministers. Their object will be to find practical solutions for the immediate problems of transition from war to peace, and to outline and amplify a policy for the years immediately following the war, which will command the support of the nation as a whole and enable united action to proceed in peace as in war. This change in the machinery cf government is one of three initiated by Mr Churchill, and was announced this evening from Downing Street.

The second is the creation of an import executive to regulate the whole business of importation in accordance with the policy of the War Cabntei.

The executive will consist of the five Ministers who are the chief importers —the Minister for Supply (Sir Andrew Duncan), chairman, .the Minister for Aircraft Production (Lord Beaverbrook), the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr A. V. Alexander), the President of the Board of Trade (Captain Oliver Lyttelton), and the Minister for Food (Lord Woolton). Other Ministers will render all necessary aid. The third creation is a production executive to allocate available resources of raw materials, productive capacity and labour, and fix priorities where necessary. This will consist of the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Ernest Bevin), chairman, the Minister for Aircraft Production, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the President of the Board of Trade, and the Minister for Supply 1 . The production executive will replace the Production Council. The committee of the three supply services, which already exists to ■ regulate purchases in North America, will, while continuing its separate work, also be embodied in the import and production executives. The Prime Minister, it is stated, assumes responsibility for ensuring that the work of both executives corresponds with' th;e general War Cabinet policy. The work of the import and production executives and of the three existing committees on defence, home policy, and food policy, will continue to bo directed by a committee under the chairmanship of the Lord President of. the Council (Sir John Anderson). The committee is now constituted as follows: The Lord President of the Council (chairman), the Lord Privy Seal (Mr 0. It. Attlee), the Minister without Portfolio, the Chancellor of the Exchequer ('Sir Kingsley Wood), the Minister for Labour and National Service, the Home Secretary (Mr Herbert Morrison), and the Minister for Supply. By these arrangements it is hoped that the complicated affairs of government in war time will lie brought into a more simple, closely-knit structure, and that more rapid and decisive action will be achieved while preserving the constitutional nesponsibilites of the Ministers to the Grown and Parlament. —British Official Wireless.