New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
The same thing happened in another factory. Now, in the period of war
this is really intolerable. ["Hear, hear!"] We cannot do with it. We
cannot afford it, I say again. There may be reasons, there might be
very good reasons, that a policy of that sort should be adopted in the
period of peace. I am expressing no opinions about that. I am simply
stating the case of this particular emergency, and I am sure that the
only thing in this emergency is that everybody should put forward all
his strength in order to help the country through. [Cheers.]
Therefore, I do hope that whatever regulation, whatever practice,
whatever custom there may be in existence at the present moment which
interferes in the slightest degree in the increase of war material,
will be suspended during the period of war.
We have given our undertaking as a Government, and that undertaking
has been inherited by a new Government. That is that those safeguards
which have been established by trade-union action prior to the war
will be restored exactly to the position they were when the war is
over, in so far as the action of the Government is concerned. We can
only ask for a suspension of these regulations during the period of
the war, then afterward the same process of discussion will go on
between capital and labor as has gone on, I have no doubt, during the
last fifty or one hundred years.
Those are two or three of the things which I wanted to put. The lives
of our men at the front depend upon the amount of war material we are
able to equip them with, success depends upon it, the lives of men
depend upon it. Everybody ought to do his best. There is no room for
slackers. ["Hear, hear!"] I don't want to get rid of the slackers, I
only want to get rid of their slackness--[laughter and cheers]--and we
really must.
In this war every country is demanding as a matter of right--not as a
matter of appeal--as a matter of right from every one of the citizens,
that he should do his best--[cheers]--and that is one of the problems
with which we have to deal in this country. It ought to be established
as a duty, as one of the essential duties of citizenship, that every
man should put his whole strength into helping the country through.
[Cheers.] And I don't believe any section of the community would
object to it, if it were made a legal right and duty expected of every
one. [Cheers.]
I don't know that I have anything further that I want specially to say
to you, because I want to get to business as quickly as possible. Sir
Frederick Donaldson of Woolwich Arsenal and Sir Percy Girouard are
here to answer any question you may put to them on the business of the
meeting. They can inform you on the technical side in a way that I
can't pretend to. I can only ask you to help us. I know that appeal to
you won't be in vain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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