TRADES UNION CONGRESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23599, 8 September 1938, Page 11

TRADES UNION CONGRESS

DISCUSSION ON REARMAMENT QUESTION OF COLLABORATION LONDON, Sept. 6. Sir Walter Citrine, reporting to the Trades Union Congress on the negotiations with the Government over rearmament measures, said Mr Chamberlain had indicated that rapid and extensive rearmament was essential. “He told us of Britain’s probable allies and the capacity of her potential aggressors, and made it clear from which quarter aggression was likely to come.” It was common knowledge that step by step aggression was threatening from dictator States, and Sir Walter Citrine expressed the opinion that the Government had badly misjudged the position, and the rapidity and extensiveness of German rearmament had apparently ■ escaped notice. The Government thought it was going to be allowed three years in which to reequip. Unfortunately, there was ever;/ indication that an approach to a crisis might be much earlier. The unions told Mr Chamberlain that his foreign policy did not commend itself ito them, and that the nearer his policy came to collective security the more likely he was to get a response from the unions. Sir Walter Citrine deplored the view that there should be no collaboration with the Government; on the. contrary, the general feeling of Congress was that better use should be made of its influence to control Government, rather than to' stand outside, A motion to. refer back the rearmament section of the report was overwhelmingly defeated.