LABOUR'S PART

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 227, 18 October 1940, Page 6

LABOUR'S PART

FORGING THE WEAPONS TO DEFEND PEOPLE'S LIBERTIES "The quicker we gel overwhelming forces in Britain I lie quicker will the Nazis cry off, as it is the only language which the Germans know." said Mr Bevin, Minister of Labour, addressing the Trades Union Congress. "We will hit back. We Avill bomb the enemy, but to do it we must have bombers, we must have .bombs, I urge you to go forward as a great industrial army and at the end it will be said that labour, by its skill and devotion, saved a great people." Mr Bevin reminded the Congress, that just after he and his colleagues took office they had asked the Labour movement to agree to what was virtually a restriction on many of the liberties which it had enjoyed. Such restrictions had been imposed by consent, arid there was quite a difference between that the method in dictatorship countries, which imposed them without question or consultation. Mr Bevin disclosed that a Tery close liaison had been established, between the Ministry and Labour, and. claimed that any reconstruction must broaden the basis of entry into the diplomatic service. He added: "If a boy from a secondary school can save us in a Spitfire, the same brain can be turned to produce a new world."