SOCIALIST PROGRAMME

Evening Star, Issue 25894, 11 September 1946, Page 5

SOCIALIST PROGRAMME

CHECKED BY WORKERS THEMSELVES TOO MUCH FRIVOLOUS IRRESPONSIBILITY LONDON, September 10. “It is impossible for the Socialist Government to carry out its economic, social, and political revolution if there is too much frivolous irresponsibility among a section of the population,” said the Minister of Health, Mr Aneurin Bevan, addressing workers in the building industry at Bristol. The Minister urged the workers not to carry their grievances to a point at which they sabotaged the economic recovery of the country, and not to revenge themselves upon the helpless public when they were dissatisfied with their wages and conditions. They should use the leaders and machinery existing to settle their grievances, and if their leaders were unsatisfactory they should get rid of them. Mr Bevan said he had a great deal of sympathy for “ squatters,” hut many of the places into which they had gone were unfit for the accommodation of families. If. he had ordered them to go into this accommodation there would have been an outcry. Mr Bevan also attacked the growth of the black market in building materials, which he claimed was seriously endangering the Government’s housing programme.