The Industrial Threat
The cause of sanity must benefit considerably by statements in the past week by Sir Vincent Tewson, Mr. Arthur Deakin, Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Aneurin Bevan all to the same effect—that industrial sabotage as a reply to the possibility of cuts in welfare expenditure in the Budget is mischievous and self-defeating. The argument in itself is, of course, com- pletely obvious. Even the men who have lent themselves to this pernicious activity—and the falling figure of pits working on Saturdays show they are not a negligible number—must realise some of the seriousness of their action. Coal output is always liable to fall at this time of the year, -when the end of the winter is in sight, but it has already fallen below the 1951 level despite the fact that the labour force and the degru, of effective mechanisation have both grown in the past twelve months. The trouble is that among the miners there is quite certainly a Communist element whose object is simply and deliberately to make trouble wherever they can, on whatever pretext. To this element speeches by T.U.C. leaders and Labour Party politicians are no deterrent whatever—rather the reverse. But at least there is now a hope that waverers who are liable to be won over by the misChief-makers will listen to the warnings, by their own official leaders, of the dangers of such a mistake. They may also be getting encouragement in the more sensible course of keeping up the level of production and leaving political questions to be settled in the proper place—in Parliament. Encouragement is certainly needed in those " militant " areas of South Wales where the trouble is worst and where it takes some courage to stand out against active agitators. It should be given in full measure.
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