LABOUR WARNED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 265, 22 August 1949, Page 3

LABOUR WARNED

I Facing Greatest Struggle REPORT TO GO TO T.U.C. (N.Z.P.A.—Copyright) (Rec. 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 21. The General Council of the British Trades Union Congress to-day warned the Labour movement that it was facing the greatest struggle in its history. This statement was made in a report which will be presented to the annual T.U.C. Congress on September 5. The report said the Labour movement’s crucial period would culminate in the next 12 months in General Eleo tioins. The T.U.C. claimed that financial and currency disorders alone were responsible for Britain’s economic difficulties. “The magnitude of our industries efforts is "strikingly .emphasised by the rise in our overall production and the expansion in our export trade. Our country’s main problem is not a decline in productive power, hut is financial and currency disorders which affect the economy of all nations, and bear with exceptional severity on our own country as custodian and guardian of the interests of the sterling area.” The report declared that the balance of the payment difficulties had complicated the operation of the Marshall Plan, and had retarded Britain’s recovery. The report criticised “disruptive tendencies inside the Labour movement which have seriously endangered the good relations among unions, and have jeopardised the work of the Labour Government.”