HANDLING OF WAR TASKS

Waikato Times, Volume 130, Issue 21664, 26 February 1942, Page 6

HANDLING OF WAR TASKS

CRITICISM IN COMMONS CHARGES OF “BLIMPERY” (United Press Assn. —Elec. Tei. copyright) (Received Feb. 26, 3.15 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 25 “We will never get a full national effort until every man and woman in Britain is conscripted and given a basic minimum wage, with a system of bonuses according to their responsibilities,” said Mr Vernon Bartlett (Ind.), speaking in the House of Commons war debate. “If the muddles continue the next victims of criticism will be the civil servants,” he continued. “The Government should review the extent to which the dead hand of the Treasury 'impedes the war effort. The war is going to be won by peoples whom the ruling class in Britain treated with dislike or contempt, and sometimes with fear.

“Mr Oliver Lyttelton can be brought back to organise production where Lord Beaverbrook failed. He also will fail. No man can solve the question of production without entirely changing the methods we are employing to run the war. “There has been no real change in the Government; merely a change of heads. Big business is still firmly in the saddle.” Mr A. Sloan (Labour) said Mr Churchill’s speech had done nothing to disperse the gloom. If anything his speech deepened the feeling of despair and showed the greatest incompetence at the top. Lives had been needlessly thrown away. The whole strategy of the war was in the hands of blunderers. Dr. Leslie Burgin said that going into the industrial field from the House of Commons one found a sense of frustration. There was profound dissatisfaction among the public over the general staff’s handling of the war.

Mr Pethick Lawrence: “I fully sympathise with the Government’s critics who.demand the abolition of ‘blimpery’ in all administrative fields. Blimpery refused to entertain new ideas and endeavoured to keep the bottom dog in his place.”