STORMY SCENES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21947, 15 February 1946, Page 3

STORMY SCENES

DEBATE DISPUTES ACT READ BEVIN ON 1926 STRIKE (9 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 14. Labour members of the House of Commons sang the Red Flag' in the division lobby last night when the Trade Disputes Bill, which repeals the 1927 Conservative Government’s Trade Disputes Act, passed its second reading by 369 to 194 votes. The division followed stormy scenes in which the Foreign Secretary, Mr Ernest Bevin. roused the Opposition to roars of protest and the Government supporters to ecstatic cheers with his version of the events leading to the 1926 general strike which, he said, he had waited 20 years to disclose. Mr Bevin declared that the return to the gold standard when Mr Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer upset the trade union agreements and caused widespread strikes and unemployment He blamed the Conservative Party. Mr Churchill and "The City” for .the industrial trouble which culminated in tire general strike. This produced uproar, in which even Mr Bavin's powerful voice was sometimes drowned Mr Bevin maintained that t!ie general strike was not a strike against the State. He declared that the 1927 Act put him under an unjustified stigma.

The Times, in a leader, says tha.t in the midst of a week marked by grave reports of world-wide distress and discontent, a deliberate renewal of the old party battle could be scarcely more misguided. The depth of feeling, engendered by the memory of a 20-year-old defeat was vividly displayed in Mr Bevin's speech, which he delivered despite heavy commitments elsewhere.