STRIKE FEVER SPREADS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21809, 15 June 1936, Page 11

STRIKE FEVER SPREADS

SPECIAL MEASURES IN BELGIUM COALITION CABINET FORMED (UNITED PHXS3 AIgOCXATIOIT—COPIBIGHT.) (Received June 14, 7.57 p.m.) BRUSSELS, June 13, The Premier, M. Paul van Zeeland, has formed a Cabinet consisting of six Socialists, three Liberals, and five Catholics. The strike fever is spreading. The Government mobilised a reserve corps of gendarmes to prevent the occupation of factories. The strike situation was so grave that the King urgently summoned M. van Zeeland to the palace again and asked him to try to form a Government. M. van Zeeland promised to do his utmost to have a Government by to-day which would “face the situation fearlessly.” The King personally appealed to the Catholic, Socialist, and Liberal leaders to support M. van Zeeland. Troops have taken over police duties at Antwerp, where 15,000 deckers and 2000 diamond-cutters are on strike.

The coal strike at Liege has spread to large fields around Mons. M. van Zeeland’s Cabinet includes the Socialist leader, M. Emile Vandervelde, as vice-president of the council. The programme is selected from the best of' each party’s programme at the recent election. It aims at the simplication of legislation and finance, the completion of economic reconstruction, llie cleaning up of politics, the control of munition works and of monopolies such as electricity. It will consider the demand for a 40hour week, especially in dangerous or unhealthy trades, but M. van Zeeland urges that it should not be generally adopted until other industrial nations have internationally agreed on it. [A message printed on Saturday stated that M. Van Zeeland had failed to form a Cabinet.] ARMS FACTORY SEIZED BY STRIKERS GOVERNMENT IXT E R VEN TIO N IN BRUSSELS BRUSSELS, June 12. The stay-in strikers occupied Belgium's principal arms factory, the Fabrique Nationale at Liege. The Government is intervening to compel their evacuation.