Word: bevins
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...uproar over the release from prison of Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley continued last week. Workers aimed their ire at Laborite Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, and Labor Minister Ernest Bevin was alarmed. He feared that the anger would 1) affect war production, 2) hurt the Labor Party in the next general election...
...Bevin's big, powerful Transport and General Workers Union once again condemned Morrison's release of Sir Oswald. Other unions were equally restive. British unions are an important segment of the Labor Party; withdrawal of their support of Morrison would divide the Party, might wreck it if Morrison continued as a Party leader...
Once again last week the House of Commons faced Britain's knotty coal problem. The need for coal continued to increase; its production kept on declining. Now tubby, furrowed, bespectacled Labor Minister Ernest Bevin proposed to send civilian and military conscripts selected by lot into the mines. This, the members recognized, was no solution. At best it was a desperate stopgap effort. It might produce more coal; it would also create more dissatisfaction. At week's end the first lottery drawing for the draft was postponed...
...Spectre. Gnarled, cheerful Jim Tweedy, who has spent 60 of his 71 years in the mines, put his finger on one trouble with Bevin's plan. Said he: "If you conscript a man for the Army he goes willingly to fight for country, home and bairns. If you conscript him for the pits he is told to fight for other men's profit." The House's lone Communist Willie Gallacher said it another way: "If it is proposed to ballot young men into the pits, it is time to ballot the owners...
Laborite Ernest Bevin's big, powerful Transport and General Workers' Union resolved that freedom-for-Mosley indicated that "the Government is wavering in its adherence to the principles for which we are fighting." Morrison promptly broke his silence, chided T.G.W.U. for haste, and promised a full explanation to Parliament...