PROTECTION OF COMMUNITY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19803, 31 May 1926, Page 2

PROTECTION OF COMMUNITY.

EAEL JELLICOE ON O.M.S. (Fhom Oub Own Cobhebpondent.) LONDON. April 16. Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe ! was the principal speaker at a meeting j held by the Organisation for the Mam- ; tenance of Supplies at Croydon. This ; organisation has been formed to carry ; on the essential services in case ot a : serious or general strike. j Lord Jellicoe said it was always a good ; thing to be prepared. Although peaceful t influences were at work, and everyone hoped they would be successful, there was a certain number of people going about the country advocating a general strike. If that occurred there would almost immediately be a cessation of the services essential for the well-being, almost the life, of the population, and the danger was greater near London than anywhere else. For London could not exist for but a few days on the stocks of provisions in hand. The population would be reduced to starvation in a few days. The principal services for which the organisation was out to provide man-ptwer were the supply of light, power and heat, sanitation, the postal service, the transport of food, fuel, and stores necessary for the life of the people, and the unloading of those stores when they arrived by road, rail, or sea. Last of all. they wanted man-power for the protection of the community against lawlessness. Such a calamity as a general strike would not only cause great suffering, but would put back the prosperity of the country indefinitely. NOT A STRIKE-BREAKING ORGANISATION. The Government had made certain pre- | parations in view of what occurred last July, but the Government organisation was purely skeleton. It did not possess any man-power, because the Government thought it might be provocative if it started enrolling volunteers, but it welcomed the assistance of any organisation which would be prepared to enrol volunteers ready to help should an emergency arise. It was well to remember that the families of the strikers tvould be fed just the same as the rest of the community. All they had to do was to get volunteers, and then the Government would do the rest. He emphatically denied that the O.M.S. was a strike-breaking orgamsa- i tion. It would never intervene in a sectional strike, but only when the life of the community was threatened by a gene- ; ral strike. It was absurd to say that the O.M.S. was provocative, for it could not be provocative to prepare for a danger ( which had been threatening for a long time. I