OCR Text |
Show on the assumption that the end of the war may still be a long way off. I had a delightful visit with Anthony An-thony Eden the next day after his return. He invited us to his apartment apart-ment which is over the beautiful, impressive office of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs. When we arrived ar-rived we found Mrs. Eden and Lady Faversham, daughter of Lord Halifax, on their knees in front of an electric fireplace where they wer toasting bread. On this they served caviar that Secretary Eden had brought from Moscow, a gift I believe, from Premier Stalin. Sta-lin. You can imagine how cozy and delightful was this informal affair. No one could be more democratic democrat-ic or more charming than was the Secretary and these two attractive women. Secretary Eden talked frankly about his trip. It was entirely en-tirely off the record but it was most interesting and informative His manner and his thinking win admiration. With Sir Walter Citrine, who is head of the Trade Unionists of Great Britain, one evening I discussed dis-cussed the labor situation in Britain. Brit-ain. Here is another great citizen and a great leader who has done much for the laboring man of Great Britain and has retained the respect and admiration of both employes and employers. Through BRITAIN SEES IT THROUGH " COMPLIMENTS OF THE r W'NETT NEWSPAPERS prank Gannett, head of the nrwsvaper group which bears and the author of ikis report, recently visited Ltme Britain-at the invitation invita-tion of the British Government Govern-ment Be inspected American and British army encampments, encamp-ments, visited airdromes and talked with crews of allied air forces and witnessed departure depar-ture of bombers on demolition misswns over Germany. He was in many areas which had felt the full fury of the Nazi Blitz and sato reconstruction which already had taken place. Be ivas received by prime Minister Churchill and other leaders of the British government and talked with high American and Allied military heads. Much of what he saw and heard cannot be revealed at this time. He came into possession of much significant material which does not violate security regulations reg-ulations material which he mcorporated in a report he I wrote after his return to the Scotland by motor and getting a close view of these islands. Pn Lord Beaverbrook's farm at Cherkley, near Leatherhead, I walked over the remains of the old Roman road built more than 2,000 years ago. This made me realize the age of these countries as compared com-pared with our America. Few know that the Romans were longer long-er in England than our people have been in America. Everywhere I turned there was something of his efforts an agreement was reached that the status quo between be-tween capital and labor would remain re-main unchanged throughout the war. There was an agreement that there will be no strikes but it also was agreed that all gains that labor lab-or had obtained would be maintained main-tained after the war. As a result there have been no widespread labor disputes in Great Britain. There have been minor strikes, but these, he says, have been due to the fact that the workers work-ers are tired after more than four years of intensive effort and their grievances have been magnified. All these little strikes have been quickly adjusted and terminated by using the wonderful machinery developed after the general strike of 1926. In Britain all employers in any one industry are organized, as well as all employes. The representatives rep-resentatives of the two groups negotiate ne-gotiate and settle readily their differences. dif-ferences. They are zealously working every minute of the day trying to produce pro-duce more and more material for the war. Their work week averages aver-ages more than 52 hours. Their weekly pay is about $25. Besides putting in 52 hours or more a week in the factory they serve United States and was published pub-lished serially in Gannett newspapers. Those instalments instal-ments will be published in TBE 3ERALD from time to time. BRITISH LABOR AND THE WAR Everyone of the forty-five minutes min-utes I had with Winston Churchill was packed full of interest but I cannot reveal what he said because it was off the record. I am sure, however, he would not object to me saying that he is most appreciative appreci-ative of the great help that America Ameri-ca has given to Britain in this war. "Without America's help," he said, "the war could not be won. ! We owe everything to America." Churchill looked tired when I saw him but he was full of that same fighting spirit that he showed show-ed in the great crisis at the beginning be-ginning of the war. When Dunkirk fell and the French capitulated and Britain was open to an invasion inva-sion by the Nazis, his answer was "What a great challenge!" Today he sees certain victory and is supremely su-premely confident of the outcome. He does, however, fear that we have ahead of us a long, hard, and costly fight and he is going ahead many voluntary hours as air raid, wardens, fire fighters, observers, ete. No one is giving more attention atten-tion to the war effort in Britain than the working class. Not only does the worker have a thin diet and food that seems hardly sufficient for hard manual labor, but he is also heavily taxed. A single man who has an income of $1,000 pays $188 to the government. A married man with two children, with an income of $2,000 pays $304 government tax. The maid in the hotel who took care of my room pays a pound a week, or about $4 in taxes. Furthermore nearly everything anyone in Great Britain buys carries car-ries a tax. The retail price of sug- ar is o cents ana the tax 4 retail price of tea is 50 cents, the tax 10; matches retail at 2 cents, the tax is 1 cent; a 20-cent glass of beer is taxed 13 cents; 44 cents' worth of tobacco is taxed 36 cents, and so it goes. Luxuries are taxed almost 100 per cent. From this you see that after a worker has paid his tax and bought some government govern-ment certificates, or war bonds, he has little left to lay aside in savings. I must admit that I was surprised sur-prised by what Great Britain is accomplishing in war production. I visited a plant making motors for airplanes. There were 2,500 workers, more than 50 per cent of them women. I have never in America seen a finer plant than this one. It was clean and efficiently effi-ciently arranged and the production produc-tion figures tell a wonderful story. At 12 o'clock the employes went into a cafeteria where all were served in less than half an hour. Their food was better than the average av-erage Britisher receives While they were eating, some of the workers were putting on entertainment enter-tainment on a stage -at the end of the enormous room where they had gathered for lunch. In 45 minutes min-utes they were all headed back to their machines and tasks. The plant had adopted our latest lat-est production methods, with Its assembly line. From the balcony I watched the workers carefully. They were like a lot of beavers all diligently at their work and moving fast. I went to another plant where they were producing Lancaster bombers. These, too, were moving on assembly lines and they were turning out more than one complete com-plete ship a day. y In Sheffield I got a glimpse of England's steel industry. In size and number of plants, it far outranks out-ranks our Pittsburgh. Hitler has several times tried to bomb Shef-1 Shef-1 field. He killed about 500 men, women wo-men and children, but he did very little damage to the steel production. produc-tion. Only two small plants were hit. Most of the bombs fell on the city where they left their usual marks. Motoring from London to Sheffield Shef-field to Glasgow and Edinburgh, I got a wonderful view of English and Scottish countryside. It seemed seem-ed to be that every available foot of land was being tilled. I saw in fields modern farm equipment such as our farmers in the States use. The production of food has been vastly increased. The highways high-ways have been improved and there are extensive plans for their further development. After the war I can imagine nothing that would be more delightful than touring through England and |