The Greenwich and Woolwich Trades Councils appeal to the people of South East London to protest to their M.P.s against the decision of the Government to close the Royal Ordnance Factory, Woolwich. This closure would not merely be the end of a landmark of London's industrial history and an €conomic measure carried out on very doubtful economic reasoning. Lt... will aot lead to any increase in the large aréea of Arsenal land which has iong been available for housing.
it could bring hardship to several thousand workers, the destruction of an establishment able te contribute much to the New Industrial Revolution o£ modernisation te which the Government is pledged, the wastage of millions of public money invested in buildings and equipment, the dispersal of a team of highly skilled men, possibly to situations in which their skills will be wasted, and a depression of wages and working conditions in the area. This is why it is in the interest of us all that the closure should not take place.
Even without arms orders, however, the ROF has time and time again shown it self capable of turning out non-military goods, from turbines and tailvay wagons to laundry presses end silk stocking machines, Ir. Wilson, before becoming Prime Minister, suggested its conversion to produce engineering goods for the developing countries; several have suggested its adaption to fabricate industrial building umits to tackle our constant housing problem. lir, Cousins, the Mingster of Technology, is: worried sbout the inadequate output of the British computer and machine tool indus— tries, The ROF has built a wide range of theese devices.
The ihited Nations experts in their report on the "Economic and Social Consequences of Disarmament," unanimously agreed that "all the problems and difficulties of transition connected with disarmament can be net" and "that the diversion to peaceful purposes of the resources now in military use could be accomplished to the benefit of ov commtries and lead to the improvement of world economic and sociel conditions." Britain has a chance to prove this by the painless conversion of a relatively small proportion of productive capacity and working people to peaceful production without redimdancy, disleestion of lives, worry, hardship and waste of resources, mechanical and human, Editorial notes this article first appeared in the Jume issue of Labour's Northern Voices
In the May Monthiy Report of the Woolrich Arsenal Shop Stewards Committee, the Executive Committee of the stewards summed up their fisht ta retain the factory: "....lhough we have known fora long time that the cards are stacked azainst us, there was the possibility that we could muster enough support and interest amongst Labour M.P.s to make the Labour Government think again. In retrospect many people will probably give many different versions of where we went wrong. Most of us feel that we placed too mach trust in the Labour Government and that unfortumately we were endowed with weak Ministers and Assistants in the Ministry of Defence. jie tried to obtain help via Newspapers and television. Perhaps we have been too nice to make news,.." The report goes on to compare the support obtained from large and small trade unions, nationally and locally. The small wumions and the local mits of the larger unions were the only ones to really respond.