TACKLING STRIKES

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXVII, Issue 9209, 14 April 1938, Page 3

TACKLING STRIKES

FRENCH GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSALS

THE LABOUR PROBLEM

BECOMING MORE DANGEROUS

Australian and N.2.. «~abK

PARIS, April 12

M. Paul Marchandeau, Minister of Finance, announced that the Government .would introduce a Bill seeking plenary powers and would demand its immediate passage to enable the Government to tackle strikes and other problems over Easter. The labour problem is becoming more dangerous every hour. The Finance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies examined M. Daladier's plans and asks a decree for powers of finance until July 31.

It proposes to bring all expenditure within the framework of the Budget, slight increase in taxation, special taxes on industries engaged in rearmament, and additional advances from the Bank of France to the limit of £63,000,000 with a loan, if advances are insufficient. M. Daladier, reading the Ministerial declaration in the Chamber, appealed to workers and employers to settle their disputes in a conciliatory spirit.

The Government intends, he said, to submit Bills completing a modern labour charter. The slowing down of the defence programme could not be permitted. It became evident overnight that the Government's life depends on M. Daaldier's ability to rapidly end the strikes, which now involve nearly 250,000 workers.

The political background of the strikes is showing more clearly since the Senate threw out M. Blum's finance Bill. Trade union leaders aro not hiding the fact that their policy is aimed at producing political rather than industrial reforms.