A WORKERS’ WAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24594, 30 April 1941, Page 6

A WORKERS’ WAR

FREEDOM AT STAKE f BRITISH LABOUR’S MESSAGE PLEA FOR GREATER EFFORT (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Apl. 29. A plea lor an even greater output and better co-operation from the workers of New Zealand so as to help rapidly to defeat the Nazi tyranny was made by Mr W. Holmes, representative of the British Trade Union Congress, in an address to the Hutt Valley Railway Workshop employees to-day. Mr Holmes stressed the fact that the war was a workers’ war. Above all. he said, everybody must remain democratic and loyally support the Government elected by the people, leaving petty grievances for settlement when the war was over. “ London is not so bad as is thought, ’ Mr Holmes said, describing the conditions in England. “We laugh at invasion because of the work of the men in the factories in the last eight months. The one thing which saved England in the May crisis was the repair and engineering shops. ■ Now, great factories are coming into opera-tion-air factories and shipyards that will build our materials superior to the enemy’s. ' “In this war the workers’ freedom is at stake,’’ Mr Holmes said. , “ The workers have saved England Up till now. It is a workers’ war. and therefore, on behalf of the British Trades Union Congress. I ask you workers to be with us till the end to win liberty and then with our combined knowledge to see that there is no more war.” T The Minister of National Service, Mr R. Semple, thanked Mr Holmes for his inspiring speech. The following motion was carried:— That this meeting of public servants engaged in the Hutt Workshops. who are members of the trade union movement in New Zealand, thank Mr Holmes for his inspiring message of goodwill from the British workmen. We ask him, in the name of the trade unionists of this country, to convey to the British workers on his return fraternal greetings, and to express our united determination to null our weight and play our part with the British workmen in their titanic struggle for liberty. Their cause is our cause, their fight is our fight, and their victory is our victory. We express our admiration for the courage and fortitude of the people of Britain, who, through their grim determination and indescribable suffering, are upholding democracy, which represents the rights of the people to be masters of their own destiny and captains of their own souls. They have won the admiration of the world. We are with them in every phase of the struggle. We pledge to them our loyalty, all the strength we possess, and all the treasures at our command in order that they, along with us, shall come victoriously out of this titanic struggle, which has been forced on us against our will.