THEIR FULL SHARE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 86, 8 October 1940, Page 7

THEIR FULL SHARE

LABOUR'S AID IN WAR

IMPORTANT WORK TO

FOLLOW

REBUILDING NATION

(Britisli Official Wireless.)

(Received October 3, 10.30 a.m.)

RUGBY, October 7

"I regard (lie past year's work with pride and satisfaction. We have surrendered or compromised no vital trade union interest. On the contrary, we have secured for trade union principles a fuller measure of recognition and more extended application of these principles, and, I believe, a more generous understanding and appreciation of them, than ever before.''

These words were spoken lo^ 050 delegates attending the Trade Union Congress by the president, Mr. William Holmes.

The attitude of organised Labour in Britain towards the prosecution of the war was unequivocally expressed. "Against the organised powers of evil in the assault upon our freedom and life the entire resources of- our nation and the Commonwealth of British Nations have been mobilised." said Mr. Holmes, "and we can claim that the trade unions represented in this assembly have made their full contribution to the nation's war effort. No further revelation than we have had of the malignant treachery, and inhumanity of the forces arrayed against us can do more than strengthen our resolve. It cannot terrorise us ov make us flinch.

"We know now beyond a shadow of doubt," Mr. Holmes said, "if any of us doubted it before that we are fighting an evil thing. It makes war by the vilest means. It practises coldblooded cruelty and frightfulness as a system. It spares nothing—neither women, babies, cripples, and aged people in the centres of civilian population, nor the sick in hospitals, nor helpless children moving to places of safety across stormy seas. "Even of greater importance than the contribution our movement is now making to the effective organisation of the nation's war effort is the service it will be called upon to give in rebuilding the life of the nation after the war. Not only will there be a rebuilding of the material structure of our life. There must be also a guarantee in our social and economic arrangements that the human needs of every man. woman, and child shall be satisfied, that the food, clothing, and shelter which a properly-organised industrial and social order can amply provide shall be available to all. and that freedom of thought and speech and association shall be reaffirmed and safeguarded.1'