Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1945. LABOUR IN BRITAIN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 224, 21 August 1945, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1945. LABOUR IN BRITAIN.

The British. Labour Government's Parliamentary programme, outlined in the Speech from the Throne, indicates that the promise given to put first things first will be honoured. The intention to take up energetically the tasks of demobilisation and the resettlement of Service men and women, and the reconversion of industry to peacetime production, is stated. The sudden collapse of Japan, bringing to an end the necessity to keep factories on war production, will materially add to the problems of resettlement of munition and-other workers. Demobilisation, may not be so seriously affected because, as Lord Lo\iis Mountbatten states in his Order of the Day to the South-East Asia Command, occupation and other problems are even greater in the Far East than in Germany because of the larger distances involved. To disarm and dispose of the Japanese over these distances will be a heavy task, to which must be added the duty of releasing many thousands of war prisoners and taking care of desolated areas to prevent famine and disease from becoming rampant. . This is in one theatre alone, so that time must elapse before the very substantial army in the South-East Asia Command is released for civilian life. Even so, the demobilisation problem in Britain is not without considerable difficulties. Housing is another matter demanding the nation's urgent attention, and it will tax the whole resources of the Government to overcome this problem. British people must have homes without delay and their temper suggests that they will brook none at all. Ministers prepared to make housing a national emergency have sound justification for their views. As in New Zealand, the Government intends to take power to acquire sites for dwellings. "We must have power to acquire what the nation or the local council needs, paying a fair price, but not an extravagant ransom," Mr 'Attlee has _ said. The first instalment of socialistic legislation indicates that the Government intends apparently to make haste slowly. The Bank of England is to become a public institution and the coal industry will be nationalised. This harmonises with the election pledge to make the process of nationalisation a gradual one. With regard to the coal industry, Mr Attlee has pointed out that the Conservatives bought out the mine owners when in power, but left the winning and distribution of coal in private hands. The Labour Government will complete the proces's of nationalisation, and the British public, who cannot all be unmindful of the coal position in this country, will await the outcome with interest. London commentators have emphasised that public ownership of the Bank of England will not add anything to the State's control of'financial policy, and the intention to pass this' legislation appears just as unnecessary as our socialistic Government's proposal to acquire the Bank of New Zealand. Another matter of policy which makes important changes from the previoris Government's relates to air transport, which is to be "reorganised. "-