SENSATION CREATED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25505, 8 April 1944, Page 5

SENSATION CREATED

PUBLIC SUPPORTS MR BEVIN (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, Apl. 6. Revelations that the coal and shipyard strikes were apparently incited and backed by an organisation calling itself the British Section of the Fourth International, or the Revolutionary Communist Party, created a sensation, and the public have strongly endorsed Mr Ernest Bevin’s decision to consider amendment of the Defence Regulations to deal more drastically with persons who foment or encourage unofficial strikes.

For over two years now the position in the British coalfields has been the subject of grave concern. At first there was some sympathy for the miners, who suffered acutely in many areas between the war years, but as time went on the public began to get impatient, then angry, with the miners, who seemingly are never satisfied. The revelation that a body of 2000 members who are “ anti-British Government, anti-Hitler, and anti-Stalin,” who oppose war, regarding it as imperial war on both sides; who. on the initial evidence, incite and encourage strikes, goes far to explain the poison which has seeped into the affected areas. A particularly fruitful field is found among youths, who, by going out on strike, have frequently caused general hold-ups! Ignorance of Apprentices

Typical of their ignorance was the view expressed by young shipyard and engineering apprentices who went to London as a deputation to see Mr Bevin, who, of course, refused to meet them. One youth when asked, “Do you consider coal mining important? ” retorted, “of course it is not.” He refused to agree that Mr Bevin knew the best use for their services. These youths, on arrival In London, were met by the 32-year-old Jock Haston. the national organiser of the Fourth International, and a 25-year-old cripple, Roy Tearse, who is reported to have been visiting many parts of the country. Tearse, according to the Daily Mail, would not leave Nottingham “until trouble had already started and he could make it worse.” These two met the youths and found them billets. It is reported that the organisaion’s funds come from halfpenny subscriptions and from members’ donations. The 25-year-old Mrs Mildred Lee, who is Haston’s secretary, declared that she came from Johannesburg seven years ago to* organise a movement “finaheed by Trotskyites in South Africa.” Reports from some of the Yorkshire mining areas suggest that the older men. more and more resentful that they ever had to strike, criticise the young and mostly non-union minority which is regarded as mainly responsible for the stoppages. The view of the man in the street is that the Government should have taken drastic action earlier. Suppression of Organisations All subversive organisations and individuals responsible for fomenting strikes, particularly in the coalfields, are to be suppressed, says the Daily Mail.. The paper adds that the Cabinet next week will make an order empowering the authorities to pounce on agitators as soon as they appear. The new order will make it a crime to incite unrest in industry. The Times says it is understood that law officers advised a strengthening of the Defence of the Realm Regulations so as to leave no room for any question that mischief-makers who create stoppages of work are guilty of an offence against the State and are liable to imprisonment. There is no doubt about the activities of numbers of individuals found among areas where trouble is afoot, but the nature and purposes of the organisations with which they appear connected are mor?’ obscure.