UNITED AGAINST EVIL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 265, 8 October 1940, Page 7

UNITED AGAINST EVIL

BRITISH TRADE UNIONS. FIGHTING NAZI CRUELTY. (United Press Association —Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 10 a.m.) RUGBY, Get. 7. “I regard the past year’s work with pride and satisfaction. We have surrendered or compromised no vital Trade Union interest. On the contrary, we have secured for Trade Union principles a fuller measure of recognition and a more extended application of these principles, and I believe, a more generous understanding and appreciation of them than evei before.”

These words were spoken to the 650 delegates attending the Trade Union .Congress by the president (Mr William Holmes). The attitude of organised Labour in Britain towards the prosecution of the war Was unequivocally expressed “against the organised powers of evil in the assault upon our freedom and life. The entire resources of our nation and the Commonwealth of British Nations have been mobilised, and we can claim that the Trade Unions represented in this assembly have made their full contribution to the nation s war effort. “No further revelation than we have liad of the malignant cruelty, treacli-, ery, and inhumanity of the forces arrayed against us can do more than strengthen, our resolve. It cannot terrorise us or make us flinch.

“We know now beyond the shadow of doubt,” Mr Holmes said, “if any of us doubted it before, that we are fighting an evil thing. It makes war by the vilest means; it practises coldblooded cruelty and frightfulness as a system; it spares nothing—neither women, babies, cripples and ugeq people in centres 9f civilian population nor the sick in hospitals, nor helpless children moving to places of safety across the stormy seas.

“Even of greater importance than the contribution our movement is now making to the effective organisation of the nation’s war effort is the service it is called upon to give in rebuilding the life of the nation alter the war. Not only will there be a rebuilding of the material structure of our life: There must also be a guarantee in our social and economic arrangements that the human needs ot every mail, woman and child shall be satisfied; that for the foodj clothing and shelter which a properly-organis-ed' industrial and social order can amply provide shall be available to all; that freedom of thought, speech, and association shall be reaffirmed and safeguarded.” Referring to the many in this country w'ho have literally lost all they possess, Mr Holmes declared it was the nation’s bounden duty to provide alternative accommodation for those rendered homeless. “The people who go to the shelters spend hours in them and must obtain hot drinks and food. When they are able to leave the shelters many go straight to work without a chance of returning home for a meal. Tho problem of better , arrangements for shelters and safer refuges is not insoluble,” he declared.