IMPORTANT CONFERENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24945, 18 June 1942, Page 3

IMPORTANT CONFERENCE

'AUSTRALIAN TRADE UNIONS PRIME MINISTER TO PRESIDE (N.Z.PA. Special Australian Correspondent) (Rec. 1 a.m.) SYDNEY, June 17. More than 200 trade union delegates from all the States, together with Government representatives, will attend the most important industrial conference ever held in' Australia, which will be opened in Melbourne on Friday. Mr Curtin will preside. It is believed that Mr Curtin will demand that the trade unions should abandon all plans for an improvement in wages or conditions while the war lasts. He is expected to tell the unions frankly that the Government has finished its blueprint for the war, and it remains only for the plan to ba put into effect. The onus to see that the

plan is implemented will rest mainly on the unions. Large industries in * both Sydney and Melbourne have been earmarked for closing. The Prime Minister has stated that the operational side of the war has ceased to be a matter for the Government. The initiative for this is in the hands of the commander-in-chief and his subordinate commanders, who also control the strategy in this theatre of war in relation to the strategy in other places. Mr Curtin added that industry had already been nationalised to some extent, and that rationalisation*was likely to become increasingly necessary in the future.