EMPLOYMENT POLICY

Grey River Argus, 23 June 1944, Page 8

EMPLOYMENT POLICY

'‘NEW EPOCH OPENING,” SAYS

MR. BEVIN.

RUGBY, June 22. “We are turning our backs finally on pasV doctrines and past conceptions and opening a new epoch,” said Mr. Ernest Bevin, .opening a three-day Commons debate on employment policy. “The maintenance of a high, stable level of employment after the war has been accepted by the Government as one of its primary aims and responsibilities,” he added. “The Government welcomes the fact that Parliament is, irrespective of party and with widespread agreement, at last facing up to-the problem as a fundamental issue. We are indeed, grappling with the problems which are uppermost in the minds of our soldiers.” Mr. Bevin added that the Government had come forward not only with a statement of its objective but with a policy for promoting measures for attaining it. The Government did not claim that the White Paper was the final solution. The main purpose was to declare war on unemployment and to indicate how our resources should be harnessed. It was pointed out that between 1922-and 1939 we lost 259 - 000,000 days’ production through strikes' and lock-outs alone. Over 60 per cent, of the disputes arose through the need for adjustments, due either to deflation or to gold standard adjustments which were outside the control of industry. . “We shall be facing a very difficult situation at the end of this war, and this time we can. not afford that joss of production,” Mr. Bevin went on. “We are raising the school age in order that our children may have a better chance—that is right, but if we are going to do it we shall have to employ the able bodies throughout their productive life fully.” Dealing with the long-term aspects the Minister said that it would be the Government’s policy to meet the onset of any depression at an early stage by expanding, not contracting, capital expenditure, and by raising consumption expenditure, not reducing it. That would involve more economic control by the State than had hitherto been experienced.