BRITISH ARMS PROGRAMME

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26409, 1 May 1951, Page 7

BRITISH ARMS PROGRAMME

MR BEVAN EXPLAINS OPPOSITION (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, April 30. Mr Aneurin Bevan, former Minister of Labour, tcld his Ebbw Vale constituents last night that arming on the present scale would produce poverty that would make Soviet Communism successful. A thousand cheering and singing Welsh miners packed the Ebbw Vale einema to hear their member explain why he resigned from the Government. They gave hint an overwhelming vote of support. About 2000 others gathered outside the building and heard the speech relayed by loudspeakers. Mr Bevan warned that American stockpiling might produce a world catastrophe. He demanded that raw materials be share equally among the tuitions. Mr Bevan reiteratea many of the Soints made in his resignation speech J the House of Commons. He explained that he did not charge his Labour Party colleagues with insincerity or bad faith. “We just parted company because there were certain things that could only be said outside the Government, and I could not go on supporting a policy which I no longer agree with.” Mr Bevan denied that he was anti- ■ American, but said Britain had the right to work her own way out. ( “I am not a pacifist. I am much too belligerent to be called a pacifist.” He added that it had been clear for some time that neither the raw matreials, machine tools, nor components, would be available in sufficient numbers at the right time to carry out the rearmament programme on the scale originally contemplated. Mr Bevan pledged that he, Mr Harold Wilson, and Mr J. Freeman, who also resigned from the Government. would vote against the Conservative motion on raw materials, which will be debated in the House to-mor- ' row night.