RADICAL LABOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 283, 29 November 1937, Page 7

RADICAL LABOUR.

ATTITUDE IN AMERICA C.1.0. Leader Gives Support to Roosevelt. TRAGEDY OF NEW DEAL. United Press Association.—Copyright. WASHINGTON", November 28. What Radical Labour's attitude toward President Roosevelt is at the present time is indicated in an extremely frank interview which Mr. John Lewis, head of the Committee for Industrial Organisation, gave to a distinguished journalist, Mrs. Eleanor' Patterson, editress of the "Washington Herald."

Prefacing his remarks with the observation that there were unhappy relations between capital and labour, Mi. Lewis said: "We are making tremendous strides in the realm of economic science, but the greatest task of mankind is to learn to enjoy national relationships with each other.

"When the history of the Roosevelt Administration is written it will go lown as one of the mist idealistic of all time, as one which tried to do most for the average man. For this I gave Mr. Roosevelt my support and he still has it, but the greatest tragedy of the New Deal is that it has wef red such heroic battles, and having won victory in such agonising struggles, it nevertheless has declined in prestige.

"This is because of just one thing, namely, lack of competent and co-ordin-ated leadership from the National Recovery Act to the present housing schemes."

Mr. Lewis expressed great perturbation over reports that Mr. Roosevelt is planning a tremendous naval building programme. "I cannot help wondering why there is all this rush over war preparations. Are we perhaps headed for another war? If enough people in high places adopt the war psychology eventually we are going to get the country thinking that way. "This is something which much concerns me, because if there is a war it is Labour which has to do the most dying."