BRITISH LABOUR SHORTAGE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25091, 24 January 1947, Page 7

BRITISH LABOUR SHORTAGE

AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY WORKERS FROM EUROPE SUGGESTED i • LONDON, January 22. The “Daily Mail,” in a leading article, advocates bringing displaced persons from Europe to fill ihe 657,000 jobs vacant in important British industries. “There remains the fear that they would push Britons out of employment,” says the leading article. “As a safeguard they could be admitted on the understanding that if they became redundant afteF, say, three years, the British Dominions would find room for them. Canada looks to a population of' 50,000,000 in the not too far distant future, and Australia needs at least 30.000,000. British stock cannot supply them all, except after generations of natural increase.” The second day following the issue of the Government White Paper which emphasised the fact that there was a deficiency of 33,000 agricultural workers in Britain, the Minister of Labour (Mr George Isaacs) told a questioner in the House of Commons that he was not prepared to consider an application by former Italian prisoners of war who had applied to return to Britain to carry on farm work. Mr Isaacs said he was hopeful that sufficient men would be found by enlisting Poles who were already in the country. The “News Chronicle,” commenting upon the question, describes the Minister’s reply as “fatuous” and asks why Italians, who are already trained for farm work, and who nave already proved themselves friendly and willing workers, should be discouraged from coming to Britain. Meanwhile, discussing the “really grave situation,” the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Cripps) told a Bradford conference of employers and employees that Britain’s problenf was: “We have more jobs to do and we want to do them more quickly than is possible with the available resources” Sir Stafford Cripps said that the Government regarded good relations between management and labour as the first essential. It was also necessary to bring the principles of management up to date and to persuade employers and employees to discard the old ideas based on fear of recurrent periods of low production and unemployment. All must subordinate their particular interests to the national necessity to meet the “very tough struggle ahead for two or three years at least.”