LABOUR ATOM POLICY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28951, 20 July 1959, Page 11

LABOUR ATOM POLICY

Support Given By Socialists

(Rec. 8 p.m.) HAMBURG, July 18. The Socialist International today urged immediate consideration of the British Labour Party’s proposals for an inspected and controlled renunciation of the independent manufacture and possession of nuclear weapons, excluding the United States and Russia.

It also urged consideration of the French Socialists’ plan for a two-year controlled cessation of nuclear tests. The leader of the British Labour Party (Mr Hugh Gaitskell) said later that he was “pretty well satisfied” with the reaction in Hamburg to the party’s non-nuclear club ban.

He said difficulties had been expected from the French Socialists over the plan, but the French had come forward with their own plan for a suspension of nuclear tests for two years.

The congress unanimously condemned Britain’s suspension of the Maltese Constitution and revision to “absolute rule” in the island It called for a return to democratic government in Malta and ’urged socialist parties to press for restoration tc the Maltese of the rights proclaimed in the United Nations Charter. Other resolutions adopted urged a United Nations guarantee of free passage for all nations through the Suez Canal, welcomed progress on the ending of nuclear tests, reaffirmed solidarity with peoples under dictatorship, and Attacked measures taken to stifle the demand for political freedom in Spain.