BACK TO WORK FRENCH STRIKERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 138, 8 December 1938, Page 9

BACK TO WORK

FRENCH STRIKERS

GOVERNMENT ARBITRATION

(Received December 8, 12.10 p.m.)

PARIS, December. 7.

The strike at Le Havre is collapsing rapidly and crews are being signed on for the Normandie and other ships. Industrial workers are returning to work throughout the country, following an undertaking by the Ministry of Labour that it will arbitrate where necessary.

The trade union leader M. Albert Thomas, who was charged with interfering with the liberty of work, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. A confession of failure was made by M. Jouhaux, secretary-general of the Trade Union Confederation, at a meeting of the trade union executive today. He said it was useless to persist with the weapon of occupation of factories, to which public opinion was opposed.

Similarly, the Labour attitude to strikes needed revision. Labour was too prone to regard strikes from a spectacular point of view. M. Jouhaux expressed the opinion that the confederation would enter a period of impotence if it supported a continuance of agitation.

In the Valenciennes district 180,000 men are working out of a total of 250,000, but there are still 18,000 strikers in the Lyons area, including 2000 dismissed men.

Disturbances occurred today in Denain, where strike leaders were arrested, including one of the seamen's leaders at Le Havre. -

The Finance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, by 26 votes to 16, rejected a proposal to submit a Bill to Parliament for a general amnesty for all connected with the strike.