“RED FLAG” SUNG

Grey River Argus, 15 February 1946, Page 5

“RED FLAG” SUNG

IN TOE COMMONS Repeal of Tory Trades Disputes Bill (Rec. 10.5) LONDON, February 14. Labour Members of the House of Commons sang “The Reg Flag” in the Commons division lobbj' last night when the Trades Dispute Bill, which repeals the 1927 Conservative Government’s Trade Disputes Act, passed the second reading by 369 to 194 votes. The division followed stormy scenes in which Mr Bevin roused the Opposition to roars of protest and Government supporters to ecstatic cheers with his version of events leading to the 1926 general strike, which, he said, he had waited twenty 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 the general strike.

This produced an uproar in which even Mr Bevin’s powerful voice was sometimes drowned. Mr Bevin maintained that the general strike was not a strike against the State. He declared the 1927 Act put him under an unjustified stigma. The “Times”, in a leading article, said: “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 the twenty year old defeat was vividly displayed in Mr Bevin’s speech, which he delivered in spite of heavy commitments elsewhere.”