Rail Strike

At midnight, in the middle of the annual three-day Whitsun holiday migration, the first important railroad strike since 1926 hit Great Britain. Seeking better pay, about 70,000 locomotive engineers and firemen left their jobs on the nationalized railroads. Rejecting government appeals to stay on the job, the strikers ground all regular trains to a halt.

Newly elected Prime Minister Eden, already preoccupied with a dock strike that has disrupted six major seaports, went on the air from the prime-ministerial country place, Chequers, to appeal to the strikers. "The country is going to be hurt," said he, and there will be "unemployment on a rapidly increasing scale." Put on notice by the striking union's advance warning, Eden's Cabinet was ready with emergency plans for distributing essential food and medical supplies. The government, said Eden sternly, "will do all it can to protect the nation."

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