BRITAIN AFTER THE WAR

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23811, 3 December 1942, Page 5

BRITAIN AFTER THE WAR

COMMONS TOLD OF PLANS

SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS (8.0. W.) RUGBY. Dec. 1. Some Government plans for postwar reconstruction were outlined in the House of Commons to-day by the Paymaster-General (Sir William Jowitt). replying for the Government to an official Labour amendment to the Address-in-Reply, urging the Government to take the necessary legislative and administrative steps to implement, without delay, its pledges given in th'' Atlantic Charter. Sir William Jowitt said that all thinking men and women subscribed to the ideals of social security, and early in the New Year the House of Commons would be able to discuss the main proposals of the Beveridge report. He added that the mobilisation of Britain's industries and people was far greater in this war than in the last, the transition to a peace economy would not be easy. The Government regarded it as inevitable that the rationing system should continue as long as the shortages continued. "Nothing will be allowed to impede the maximum employment of the people,” he said. "Moreover, we must aim deliberately at improving the standard of living, not only in Britain but throughout the world, and the Government is already anxious to press on with discussion of these problems with our Allies. The problems of the occupied countries might come upon us even before the war has ended. Consultations are now proceeding as to the best method of achieving a common purpose.” Sir William Jowitt, discussing demobilisation, said that not a man could expect to be demobilised if and so long as his services wore required for some definite military purpose. Survey of Industry

He announced a Government decision to make a survey of industryindustry by industry, because there was no one common problem applying to all industries. “In some cases perhaps we should run an industry as a national concern, possibly using the method of the public corporation,” ho said, “In olher cases unlimited free competition might serve best.” So long as the absence of competition did not lead to inefficiency the Government would be very ready to participate in discussions to that end. It was hoped to achieve international co-operation in export trade, to secure equitable distribution and orderly marketing of world supplies, avoiding excessive variations in the prices of primary products. Other Government proposals announced by Sir William Jowitt were the constitution of a separate Ministry of Town and Country Planning, and the conferring on local authorities of wide, simple powers for compulsory acquisition of land.

RESEMBLANCE TO

N.Z. PLAN

COMMENT MADE BY SIR WILLIAM BEVERIDGE LONDON, Doc. 1. Denying that he ever described his social security scheme as "half-way along the road to Moscow,’ Sir William Beveridge told the press that the scheme bore no relation to anything in Russia, the United States, or Germany. “The only thing the scheme resembles is the New Zealand plan, and I think it interesting that we in this country should have the same kind of views and sentimentality towards insurance as New Zealand.”

COPIES OF REPORTS

SOUGHT

N.Z. GOVERNMENT’S INTEREST

(P.A.) WELLINGTON. Dec. 2. A request that the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) should obtain for the information of members the printed report of Sir William Beveridge on social security, mentioned in a 8.8.C. news bulletin, was made in an urgent question in the House of Representatives to-day by Mr F. L. Frost (Government, New Plymouth), who added that Sir William Beveridge had mentioned the New Zealand scheme with great approval in his report. , Mr Fraser, in reply, said that cab'cs had already been sent to the Hign Commissioner in London (Mr W. J. Jordan) asking him to send by air mail a number of copies of the report. Mr Fraser said he would like to emphasise that Sir William Beveridge had mentioned that the British scheme was based not on that of the United States or Russia, but on that of New Zealand. Mr F. W. Doidge (Opposition. Tauranga): Also Denmark. Mr Fraser; Ho did not mention that.

RELATIONS WITH

RUSSIA

“ ENIGMA WHICH MUST BE SOLVED ” NEW YORK, Dec. 1. “Russia's relations with Britain and the United States form a great central enigma which must be solved before an armistice with Germany in order to achieve European stability," says the Washington correspondent of the “New York Times.”

“It is expected that military guarantees will allay some fears concerning Russia among the central European States. Officials say that the last peace failed because of the lack of military guarantees, for which reason the United Nations’ forces must act this lime as an international police force until they arc replaced by a permanent system equipped with military power. “Furthermore, it is considered that the colonial peoples can be granted their freedom without breaking up the British Empire. Therefore Mr Churchill’s expressed unwillingness to liquidate the Empire does not strike observers as inconsistent with the Atlantic Charter, as Mr Wendell Willkie believes it to be.”

NEW NAZI ARMOURED UNITS

PURPOSE OF “ PANZER GRENADIERS ” LONDON, Dec. 1. “The Germans have found that antitank obstacles and anti-tank guns have made such rapid strides that the tank is becoming neutralised. The German General Staff, therefore, has evolved ‘panzer grenadiers’ to solve what is becoming a military problem of stalemate, and the Allies must now produce a counter to this move," says a special correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” "A panzer grenadier regiment comprises armoured artillery on caterpillars, armoured anti-aircraft units, armoured anti-tank vehicles, armoured sappers’ (rucks, also shock troops in special tank-like armoured vehicles. These last are called ‘sargomobiles’— mobile coffins—because of their shape and the perilous task of their crews. They resemble tanks, and hundreds of them fleeing with Rommel’s troops were mistaken for tanks.

“The job of the panzer grenadiers is to smash anti-tank strong points, opening the way for the tanks. The grenadiers were hardly used in Libya because Rommel was saving them up for an offensive.”