WAR PREVENTION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21632, 8 February 1945, Page 6

WAR PREVENTION

LABOUR’S GREAT AIM UNIONS VERSUS FASCISM MAJOR ATTLEE’S VIEWS (9 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 7. “The United Nations’ determination lo prevent another world war must be backed up by the workers of all ■lands.” said Major Attlee, deputy Prime Minister of Britain, addressing the International Trade Union Conference. Major Attlee said this was a people's war—a workers’ war. Trade unionism had always been among tire first victims of Fascism, and organised Labour in Britain realised that this challenge to everything for which it stood must. Ire taken up. Without in any way belittling the value of establishing international standards of wages, hours and conditions, he thought the supreme value of international trade unionism was the creation and maintenance of close personal relationships between the workers of different countries. The new and closer tics which were created in this war between those who had fought side by side in lire common cause must be maintained and strengthened. He hoped that when peace returned, intercourse between the workers of the various countries of the world would, with modern transport developments, become steadily closer: so that nc-aco would rest not merely on organisations for the prevention of war, but on a real unity of aim and a real consciousness of interdependence among all the peoples ot the world. Workers’ Backing Needed Welcoming the delegates Major Attlee said that they represented the gi eat majority of the organised working people of free countries of the world and the conference emphasised the fact that this was a people’s war. Modern wars, he said, were won in the factory and workshop, and they knew that behind every fighting man at sea, on land or in the air stood a great body of workers, men and women, who made and transported the weapons with which to fight. In laying the foundation of a new and peaceful world, the Governments must play their parts, but so also must the peoples. The United Nations were resolved to prevent another war, but this determination must be backed by workers in all lands. It would require a tremendous effort to build a peaceful and prosnerous world when so many of those who had to live in it had undergone somuch suffering and had such bitter memories.

Stressing one of the most important aspects of international unionism, Major Attlee said that without In any way belittling the value of international standards of wages, hours and conditions. he thought the supreme value was the creation and maintenance of close personal relationships between the workers in different countries. There was a time when, in all the countries of Europe, small educated classes had a common outlook and common culturew hich had resulted in European consicousness. In these days when power was passing from a few to many, when the working man was the inheritor of achievements in the past in art, literature and science, we needed to create a new Europe consciousness, but this consciousness must extend to the masses and must not be the preserve of a small governing class. Further, this unity ot spirit must transcend not merely countries but continents. He was certain that, in building up this world unity, international unionism had a great part