LONDON STRIKE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29503, 3 May 1961, Page 15

LONDON STRIKE

Appeal By Govt. IN Z P .A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, May 2. The Government yesterday called on 14,300 striking London dock workers to end their stoppage in the national Interest and clear 30,000 tons of perishable food. The Minister of Labour <Mr John Hare) made the appeal in the House of Commons after 800 more men had joined the strike, and the number of ships idle or short of labour had risen to 78. Mr Hare addressed Parliament after attending a special meeting of Ministers called by the Prime Minister (Mr Macmillan) to discuss the effects of the stoppage.

Political quarters speculated that the Prime Minister and his colleagues might have discussed the possible use of troops to shift perishable foods, but Mr Hare confined his statement to an appeal to the dockers. He told the House of Commons that the unofficial strikers—protesting at the employment by a small firm of part-time workers—should take up their dispute through constitutional channels. Mr J. Dash, the strike leader, said it was hoped to confine the stoppage to London. but unless an inquiry were held into the hiring of part-time labour they should have to consider the other ports as well. He claimed that dockers at Liverpool and Plymouth were already boycotting vessels diverted from London.

A deputation from the London Chamber of Commerce, representing chiefly the perishable goods trade, saw Mr Hare for an hour tonight and told him that if the dock strike continued, within the next few days the prices in the shops of some perishable and semi-perish-able goods would double. Lord Ebbisham. who led the deputation, said afterwards,. however, that as far as the ’food situation in the country was concerned, there was no actual crisis at present

Two kinds of gratitude: the sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.—E. A. Robinson.