NATIONALISATION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 287, 4 December 1941, Page 7

NATIONALISATION

MUNITION FACTORIES

Labour's Price To Support

Manpower Bill U.P.A. and British Wireless. Rec. 10 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 3. Although the Labour party has officially accepted the Government's manpower and womanpower proposals a section of the party decided to table an amendment demanding the nationalisation of munition factories, transport and coalmines as the price of their support. At the Labour party meeting held on Tuesday morning, at which Mr. Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, privately explained the Government's policy, about 30 Labour members are known to favour the amendment. This fact was conveyed to Mr. Churchill, who held a series of consultations with his advisers. A further meeting of the Labour party will be held before the end of the debate, probably to-day, when the party's attitude to the amendment will be determined. Britain's Home Guard An earlier message gave additional details of Mr. Churchill's manpower and womanpower bilL "The Home Guard," he said, "is our great prop and stand-by against invasion, particularly invasion by air-borne troops carried in gliders or crashable aircraft. We have nearly 1,700,000 men, the bulk of whom are well armed, spread about the whole country. "We have many millions of rifles m this country, but they are not sufficient for all. Therefore we supplement them with machineguns, tommy guns, pistols, grenades and bombs, even with a pike or a mace, pending further developments. "In the summer of last year we were an unarmed people except for a few regular troops. Now, if a parachutist comes down, he comes into a hornets' nest_ The Home Guard has become a most powerful, trained and uniformed body, which plays a vital part in our national defence. "It is now proposed to take power to direct men into the Home Guard in areas where it is necessary, and to require them to attend drills indispensible to the maintenance of efficiency." Mr. Churchill said boys and girls between 16 and 18 who were not already members of some organisation or doing useful work would be | encouraged to join one or other of I the organisations where they could obtain the training required to fit them for national service. Referring to the proposal to recruit women, Mr. Churchill said it was not proposed at present to extend compulsion to join the Services to married women, even if they were I childless, but they could volunteer. The Government already had power to direct married women into industry, but that power would be used with discretion. Women were already playing a great part in the I war, but they must play a sti'l ! greater part. The technical apparaj tus of modern warfare gave extra- | ordinary opportunities to women. I Extension of Women's Services The Government asked for power !to require women to serve in the uniform of the auxiliary forces or civil defence. That power would be applied for some time to come only to unmarried women between the ages of 20 and 30. This class numbered 1,620,000. The vast majority were already usefully employed, and it was only a quarter, or perhaps a third, who would be required to change their present employmentMr. Churchill said these steps had to be taken because the Empire had two vultures hovering over it, and the Empire must constantly be prepared against them. The first was invasion—which might never come, but which would be held off only by having a large, well-trained mobile force, and many other preparations in a constant high state of readiness. "The other vulture,*" said Mr. Churchill, "is our old acquaintance the air raider. We have had an easy time in the past six months because the enemy is occupied in Russia, but at any moment Hitler may recognise his defeat by the Russian armies and endeavour to cover his disaster in the east by wreaking his baffled fury upon us. We are ready for him.

"Great quantities of anti-aircraft artillery are coming from the factories. Behind them are the rangefinders and a precious host of elaborate appliances of a highly delicate and highly secret character.

"We cannot afford to keep so many hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers, many of whom are fit for the mobile field forces, standing about at these stations, and we must reduce the number in order to keep the field armies up to strength and to prevent having to draw on the munition factories for the maintenance of the field armies.

"All these new appliances require no very great strength to handle. Over 170.000 women are needed for the Auxiliary Territorial Service and over 100.000 for air defence. Women will have the right to volunteer, and only volunteers will be allowed to serve with the guns in wartime.

"The employment of women in industry has already been developed, but on nothing like the scale which must be reached in the days which lie before us. An immense variety of armament works are available to enable women to divide their domestic tasks and be able to work close at hand, in factories and fields. The development of creches and public nurseries may partially free mothers of families from domestic duties.

"Such are the new burdens which the hard course of our fortunes compels us to invite the nation to assume. Nothing else than this can suffice at present, and even more may be required by orders of the future."