U.S.A. AFFAIRS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1945, Page 10

U.S.A. AFFAIRS

LABOUR AND PRESIDENT. WASHINGTON, December 5. Making a charge that the United States Administration was completely ignoring human rights in currem industrial problems, the President of the Congress of Industrial Organisations (Mr. Philip Murray) attacked Mr. Truman’s labour programme. “The design of the specific legislative proposals is to weaken and ultimately destroy the unions,” said Mr. Murray. “Therefore the C. 1.0. shall mobilise its entire membership and the American people to defeat this measure and all similar attempts directed against labour.” He added that the Administration had embarked on a policy- of continued appeasement of American industry in face of its contemptuous attitude towards the American people and towards the Government itself. INDUSTPvIAL - !DISPUTES. ' YORK, December 6. The President of the C. 1.0., Mr. Murray, announced, after a conference of management and labour leaders at Pittsburgh, that negotiations with the General Motors Corporation would be resumed to-day in regard to the strike at the Corporation’s plant in Detroit. The Ford Local Six Hundred, which is the nation’s largest local union, has called on its 51,000 members in Detroit to establish a picket, comprising motor-cars, at the General Motors Corporation plants, on Saturday. This demonstration is timed to coincide with a conference of 250 United Automobile Workers’ delegates to consider President Truman’s request for an immediate resumption of work. A Bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives, embodying Piesident Truman’s proposals for calling-off periods, and also for factfinding studies in major labour disputes. The Labour Committee is asking the House to act before Christmas, despite solid opposition from organised labour. CRUISER COURT-MARTIAL. WASHINGTON, December 4. Captain C. B. McVay, commanding officer of the United States heavy cruiser Indianapolis, which was sunk in the Philippines Sea on July 30, appeared before a court-martial charged that he neglected to order a zig-zag course through an area where enemy submarines might be encountered, and that after being informed that his vessel was sinking, he failed to issue and see effected timely orders for abandoning ship. Captain McVay entered formal pleas* of not guilty. The first witness, Lieutenant Joseph Waldron, said that the cruiser Indianapolis had been warned of submarine contacts within 200 miles of the route it was instructed to follow from Guam. The commander was instructed to travel at 15 knots, and to zig-zag at his own discretion. PEARL HARBOUR REVELATIONS. WASHINGTON, December 4. The Congressional Committee inquiring into the Pearl Harbour attack had before it to-day a memorandum prepared by General Mile's, formerly head of the Army Intelligence, showing that ’a warning message from General Marshall to the Hawaiian commander, General Short, was sent by commercial cable because the service radio was defective, and received at Honolulu a few minutes before the attack. The message was not delivered to the signals officer by an Oriental messenger until 11.45, and not decoded and delivered to Short’s staff until upwards of seven hours after the attack. The memorandum showed the message centre at General Marshall’s headquarters reported that the message would reach destinations in half an hour.

Colonel Bratton, who had been instructed to send the message to all outpost commands by the most expeditious means, said the centre gave no indication the message was not going by army radio direct to the four army headquarters. The message read: “The Japanese are presenting at 1 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) to-day what amounts to an ultimatum. Also they are under orders to destroy their code machine immediately. Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know, but be on the alert accordingly. Inform naval authorities of this communication —Marshall.” The memorandum continued that Colonel J. Pi. Deane, the only office/ present at General Marshall’s headquarters at the time related as follows: “About 1.30 p.m. enlisted men from the navy rushed into my office with a pencil note supposed to have been a message from a navy radio operator at Honolulu reading: ‘Peart Harbour attacked. This is no drill.’ I contacted General Marshall at Fort Meyer and told him of the message. He directed me to contact Hawaii if possible, and verify, but before this was possible, an official message confirmed the attack.” “BIG THREE” MEETINGS. WASHINGTON, December 6. The Secretary of State, Mr J. F. Byrnes, commented on President Truman’s statement that there should be no further Big Three conferences, and that the United Nations’ Organisation should take over as soon as possible. Mr Byrnes said that the Piesident was referring to the individuals heading the Big Three, but he did not intend to oppose meetings by Big Three Foreign Ministers, or by a Council of Foreign Ministers. Mr. Byrnes added that the United States desired peace treaties to be negotiated by a Peace Conference, as lie had advocated at the London meeting of Foreign Ministers. TRADE WITH NEUTRALS WASHINGTON, December 6. The United States Treasury stated: Neutrals could not be accorded privileges available to other countries until they had taken effective action to search out and to immobilise control of all enemy assets within their jurisdiction, and not until a satisfactory solution had been reached concerning the disposition of enemy assets. » It was announced by Mr Vinson that normal financial transactions may be resumed between firms in the United States and all countries in the world, except former enemy States, and also Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Tangier, which were neutral during the , war.