Refuse To Cancel New Defence Regulations

Northern Advocate, 29 April 1944, Page 5

Refuse To Cancel New Defence Regulations

(Rec. 1.30 p.m.) LONDON. April 28. The House of Commons today by 314 votes to 23 refused to cancel the new defence regulations which prescribed heavy penalties for people who start strikes affecting essential industries. The motion for cancellation was moved by Mr. Aneurin Bevan (Ind. Lab.), who described the regulations as a stab in the back for the forces. It would have been better, he said, if this order had not been made. Parliament would not then have been called upon to distract the attention of the nation from the great crisis the war was now reaching to matters of such painful domestic concern. Mr. D. Kirkwood (Lab.) said the Minister for Labour, by his action, had betrayed all the good work he had done in his life. Captain E. C. Cobb (Con.) said be firmly believed that if the strikes, which the regulation were designed to prevent were allowed to continue, it would inevitably add to the shortage of supplies needed by our armed forces. He had no doubt that the bulk of the unrest and disturbance was a direct result of considerable activities by agitators. Mr. H. Reakes (Con.) said nine out of 10 people were delighted to think that the Government, at long last, was coming to grips with this strike question. Realise Inevitability

The Rt. Hon. Arthur Greenwood (Lab.) said there was no trade union leader he had met who did not deplore the fact that the regulation had to be issued. It was not that they desired it, but the very large majority had come to realise the inevitability of a regulation of this kind. The Minister for Labour (Mr. Ernest Eevin) said that in 1940 he had asked every executive trade union to forego strikes and accept arbitration for the duration of the war. The conference agreed unanimously. Pie added: “It is to the eternal credit of the trade union movement that not a single executive has paid one penny of strike pay to support a strike since that day.’ Referring to recent strikes, Mr. Bevin said he was not prepared to accept that their simultaneous development was just a coincident. Why did strikes occur in industries dealing with things most vitally necessary in the prosecution of the war? Why were certain industries selected and who, when the branches decided to return to work, organised pickets to meet members in the road and halt them? Those things were not done by the ordinary trade union members. In a war of this character, the biggest effme was machination and instigation to get other people to take part in a strike.