BRITISH WORKERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 126, 30 April 1941, Page 7

BRITISH WORKERS

DETERMINED COURA GE. WELLINGTON, April 30The British people from the highest to the lowest in the land, were in good heart and wore determined to endure till victory was won, declared Mr Wilj liam Holmes, past-president of the l British Trades Union Congress, in addressing a meeting of trade unionists lin the Wellington Trades Hall last, night. Great new factories were coming rapidly into production. Mr Holmes said, and Britain would soon reach parity with the enemy in the air and get beyond that, too. . “As a fraternal delegate of the general council of the 'l’radcs Union Congress 1 bring von a message of goodwill from 5.000,000 British trade unionists,” said Mr Holmes, who was received with applause. “They have charged me to deliver to you their pledge of loyalty to the common cause which engages the total energies of the British Commonwealth of Nations. They have asked me to tell you that their assurance of victory is strengthened by the knowledge that you are with then! in the struggle. "We are confident in the issue. . . . We are lighting for our birthright of freedom now without respite by day and night. We arc all in the front line now.” The part played by Labour members of the Ministry and the way in which the trade union and Labour movements were associated in the conduct of the war were outlined by Mr Holmes. Trade unionists, he said, were in this war not passively but as active agents of an. organisation and a movement which had accepted the challenge of Hitlerism and was determined to carry on Iho struggle till Hitler was destroyed.

Trade union leaders had not forgotten the needs of their members, and the interests of the workers had never been so carefully guarded as during the present crisis. Nowhere had there been a compulsory extension of the working week, and factory legislation restricting the hours of women and young persons was still in force. Tt could only he relaxed by permission ol the factory inspectors after consultation with the unions concerned and the Government. “Tt is true that in some eases our liberties have been curtailed,” said Mr Holmes, “but these have been imposed by the consent of the unions. In certain industries men cannot leave to take up work elsewhere without the consent of the Minister of Labour, but they have the right of appeal to a committee cn which trade union representatives sit.”