FACING SEVERE TRIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26692, 11 February 1948, Page 5

FACING SEVERE TRIAL

GOVERNMENT AND WAGES POLICY

CHANCELLOR’S GRAVE WARNING N.Z.P.A.—Copyright LONDON, Feb. 9.

The Government, in facing this week the severest trial of its policy since it was returned to power, will seek to convince the Trades Union Congress on Wednesday and Parliament on Thursday of'the virtue of its wages policy as contained in its White Paper, says the political correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. He added that failure on either occasion may start a train of events which would involve at least a major Cabinet reshuffle. The correspondent said Sir Stafford Cripps’s gi'ave warning was given after a full Cabinet discussion. Mr Attlee ana his colleagues are now fully convinced that immediate action must be taken if Britain’s economic structure is to be upheld. Ministers, before meeting the T.U.C. on Wednesday, will try to reach an agreement on a policy for restricting profits which will commend itself to the unions.

The Times in a leader said the illusion of prosperity just around the corner, which full employment encouraged, should by now be almost everywhere dispelled. The Government’s wages policy was not merely another exhortation. It was clearly intended to have immediate effect. Britain’s economic situation was more desperate than ever before in living memory, said the secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, Mr Arthur Horner, to a miners’ meeting. He added that if the miners .did not do their job other industries could not do theirs. He appealed for an 11,000.000-ton increase in coal production to provide £40.000,000.