MAXIMUM EFFORT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24736, 13 October 1941, Page 5

MAXIMUM EFFORT

A STIRRING APPEAL NEW SPIRIT FOR BRITISH WORKERS (Rcc. 7 p.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 11. Speaking to some thousands of building men working on the construction of an urgently-needed Royal Ordnance factory to-day, Mr George Hicks (general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Building Trades) said: "The war bulletins talk of fighting in the direction of Moscow and Odessa. We say to ourselves 'This is very grave.' Eut what we should and must say to ourselves is that next spring, according to the Nazi schedule, the news bulletins will be: ' There is fighting in the direction of London. Leeds and Glasgow.' That Nazi schedule has been delayed, but we cannot claim that it has ever been halted. " This is not a case of scare-monger-ing, but of looking facts in the face. And what if invasion comes? Every British working man and woman will cry out for work and yet more work, asking nothing but food and water on which to live and work. "That is the spirit of Russia to-day. It will be our spirit if that hour arrives. It should be our spirit to-day. Half-built 'factories are useless. We must get them up and working, and then go on to build others. The time has come when it is no longer a question of what is a fair day's output for a bricklayer, but what is the very maximum each one of us can get out of himself to save the blood of Russia, of Britain, and of our women and children. " I have spent my life fighting for better pay and better conditions for building operatives. To-day I say to you that the money in your pay envelope is one of the less important things in life."