TROUBLESOME DAYS AHEAD IN BRITISH LABOUR MOVEMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27092, 28 May 1949, Page 7

TROUBLESOME DAYS AHEAD IN BRITISH LABOUR MOVEMENT

NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 10 p.m. LONDON, May 27. The Prime Minister, Mr Attlee, is reported to have told Labour back-T»enchers who voted against the Government on the Ireland Bill and other measures that such actions on their part may well lead to the Government being defeated on a snap vote and possibly precipitate an inconvenient election. He also pointed out that an early election would jeopardise the passing of the Iron and Steel Bill and the Parliament Bill.

A number of those recently rebuked by the Government leaders for defying whips are stated to have been unrepentant and to have argued very strongly that individual members were not being given an adequate voice in shaping the policy of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Several members strongly criticised MrMaurice Webb, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, for signing the letter of rebuke sent to backbenchers, on the grounds that it was no part of Mr Webb’s function to take such action and on the additional grounds that he had himself not very long before publicly criticised the Government’s policy in relation to wages and prices. The Leader of the House, Mr Herbert Morrison, equally strongly defended Mr Webb's action on the grounds that Mr Webb, when he signed the warning letter, was merely acting on instructions of the official liaison committee which maintains communication between Ministers and back-benchers. While Mr Attlee and the senior Ministers are doing their best to improve discipline in the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party, there are increasing signs of dissatisfaction with the Government’s policy among members of the Trades Union Congress. Sir Stafford Cripps’s Budget was received with dismay, and even hostility, by many trades unionists and although their first reactions were subsequently modified by the .desire of the Trades Union Council to do nothing that would embarrass the Government, it is recognised that it is becoming increasingly difficult for union leaders to hold the rank and file in check. One indication of this is the number of large' wage claims now being pressed by various unions in defiance of Sir Stafford Cripps’s edict against wage increases. Considerable importance will undoubtedly attach to the speech which Sir Stafford is expected to deliver during the forthcoming national conference of the Labour Party at Blackpool. In this the Chancellor is expected to answer his critics within the Labour Government and to make a strong appeal to unions not to embarrass the Government by insisting upon wholesale wage increases. Critics of Sir Stafford’s policy among the unions—many of them Communists—reply by claiming that Sir Stafford has not. succeeded in reducing the cost of living or in lowering the level of taxation which they assert was to be the unions’ recompense for withholding their wage claims. Dissatisfaction both within the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party and of the Trades Union Congress has not reached the stage at which it threatens an immediate rift in the unity of the Labour movement, but it is undoubtedly increasing to an extent which is causing leaders of the party anxiety.