GERMAN REARMAMENT MAY CAUSE CLASH IN LABOUR PARTY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27442, 31 August 1954, Page 11

GERMAN REARMAMENT MAY CAUSE CLASH IN LABOUR PARTY

LONDON, August 29. Mr Altlee and the other Labour Party leaders will face an all-aut onslaught from their rank and file when the clash over West German rearmament • readies its climax at the party’s annual conference at Scarborough, Yorkshire, on September 27.

In addition to divisions over foreign policy, the conference •will be marked by a contest between Mr Hugh Gaitskell former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr Aneurin Bevan, the Left Wing leader, for the post of party treasurer. Nearly 60 local parties have tabled resolutions opposing the leader’s declared policy of a West German contribution to West European defence. This issue has evenly split the party, and it is uncertain whether the official policy will be endorsed. Teh resolutions assail the proposed South-east Asian Treaty Organisation, which will be considered at Manila on September 9. One declares that the pact will appear to the peoples of South and South-east Asia as a "defence of out-dated colonialism." Another says such a regional organisa-

tion should not be supported unless Communist China and India were included. Other resolutions want the admission of Communist China to the United Nations, declaring that such a move is now “a matter of extreme urgency.” Nuclear Weapons About 30 resolutions call for party leadership action on hydrogen, atomic and other weapons, some urging top level talks to ban nuclear weapons.' A few local parties oppose the stationing of American air bases in Britain. There is some agitation to speed up the independence of British colonial peoples and the Wolverhampton Staffordshire Labour Party calls for a declaration that, when another Labour Government is returned to power, it should consult colonial races and set a

time limit for granting full independence to these territories. By standing for the party treasurership. Mr Bevan has virtually given up his seat on the 28-member National Executive Committee, the party’s filling body. He has little chance of gaining the treasurership—and with it a committee seat—because most of the giant trade unions are backing his rival, Mr Gaitskell. a "moderate” and a staunch anti-Bevanite. Some observers believe Mr Bevan's move in apparently cutting away from the party chiefs is designed to allow him to campaign in the country for support of his views. As a member of the .committee he was bound by the rule that all members must stand by its majority decisions.