‘TIME RUNNING OUT'

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22416, 25 August 1947, Page 5

‘TIME RUNNING OUT'

FIGHT FOOD AND COAL DRIVE MR. MORRISON'S WARNING (9 a.m-) LONDON, Aug. 24. “Britain’s greatest shortage now is time,’’ said the Lord President of the Council, Mr. Herbert Morrison, in a broadcast last night over the 8.8. C. “Time is running against us even faster than the drain of dollars. We have done great things since the war, but we still have not not done enough and we have done it too slowly.” Mr. Morrison said that Britain was producing nearly one-third more food than before the war, but needed to produce half as much again and do it quickly. Food growing was the top priority. Other things must take a lower place.

“There must be less private motoring so that farms may have more tractors and petrol,” he added. “More houses must be put up for farm workers- That means fewer houses for other people. Those on the land must be given food and other things they need to keep them at full efficiency. “Shock Troops of Industry” “The nation also needs a lot more coal and: needs it quickly. There is no public service today more urgent than getting coal. If the miners rise to this occasion, they will have justified socialism, which has been their dream for years, they will have won for themselves the place which is waiting for them as the shock troops of Britain’s industrial army, and they will have saved Britain.” Mr. Morrison added that more people had to work in the cotton and woollen industries, foundries and brickworks if Britain is to win through. He appealed to the people doing unessential work voluntarily to change their jobs. He alss appealed to people to prevent inflation by putting their money into savings “to check too much money chasing after too few goods.” Britain needed more of a will to win the peace like the will it had to win the war. Gibe at Mr. Churchill Mr. Morrison, referring to Mr. Churchill’s broadcast on August 16, said that Mr. Churchill sought to suggest that Britain was becoming totalitarian. “He seeks to show the nation which way it should go, but can find no better way of doing it than recalling the line he took as Liberal Minister 41 years ago,” said Mr. Morrison. “Mr. Churchill offers the nation not a lead forward, but a lead back, to what he calls comr petitive selection which, as used by the Conservatives, is no more than a plausible label for a system of slumps, booms, undeserved rewards and unjust penalties. "Almost everyone suffered from the unmerited miseries of the system before the war. If Mr. Churchill asks the people who were Britain’s backbone during the war, and how they got on under competitive selection between the two wars, they will give a clear, sharp answer.’’ The Labour Government would not support competitive selection as the Conservatives would practise it, he said. “All Will Have to Work” “We are going forward to a transformed and strengthened Britain in which everyone can work to a purpose,” he declared. “We will all have to work to get there- The Government cannot do the whole job.” Britain was seeing come true the things which not so long ago were dreams. It had very nearly provided jobs for all. Social security and health services were nearly an accomplished fact, but Britain could achieve nothing v.-ithout more solid, determined effort. “People talk a lot about incentives,” he stated. “I believe that a lot of this . talk is bunk. I will not believe that British men and women are not going to give Britain all the effort she needs unless they are spoonfed and bribed. “I will not believe that we are short of people who will give what it takes to see Britain through without thought of argument about what they are going to get out of it.”