PLENTY OF JOBS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 128, 27 November 1944, Page 6

PLENTY OF JOBS

BRITISH POST-WAR ASSURANCE

RUGBY, November 25

The Minister of Labour, Mr. Ernest Bevin, speaking at Leeds of the Government's demobilisation plans, said that there would be thousands of jobs going after the war, and there would be no fear of unemployment for several years.

On the subject of priority for building operatives and teachers for demobilisation, the Minister said: "To attempt to bring out all sorts of other people would break down the demobilisation scheme. It would only lead to favouritism, and soldiers with five and six years' service will not stand for any of that. If we once allow ourselves to be cajoled by political pressure to grant releases outside a strictly impartial demobilisation plan, the whole idea would completely break down as it did after the last war."

Dealing with a recent clamour for the release of people from the Services, Mr. Bevin said: "This trouble in the United States arose because immediately the Allies went through France and Belgium into Holland, the Press and many responsible people in industry in America assumed that the war was over. They shouted .for the rapid reconversion of thousands of people from the Services and from war work into civilian industry. "Thousands of people ran out of the munition factories, and munition production completely broke ' down in many places. In America and this country, employers, the Press, and trade unions will have to keep their heads when these Allied advances take place, otherwise we shall be landed in a mess in munitions production If the British Government had not had a pretty good grip, this clamour for i release from the Services might have had serious results here a few months ago. Everyone pestered my life out to release people from the Army. If I had listened to them—well, Hitler might have beaten us."

Speaking of the demand for the release of women, particularly older women, from industry, Mr. Bevin said he foresaw no difficulty. Some people had decried the employment of older women. "If W e had not registered women up to 51 and got thousands of workers thereby, we could scarcely have been ready for D Day," he said That is another example of how shorts^tea Political agitation usually is." —J8.0.W.