LABOUR BLAMED.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 266, 9 November 1928, Page 7

LABOUR BLAMED.

BRITAIN'S WORKLESS.

Churchill Harps Back To 1926

General Strike.

VIGOROUS DEFENCE.

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received 1 p.m.)

RUGBY, November 8.

When the debate on the Address-in-Reply to the King's Speech was resumed in the House of Commons, Mr. J. R. Clynes (Lab., Platting), on behalf of the Labour party, moved an amendment regretting that, although the Government had had four years of office, the country was burdened with unemployment in a more acute form.

Appalling conditions prevailed in many mining areas, he said, and the proposals outlined in the King's Speech were utterly inadequate to meet the existing industrial situation.

Mr. Churchill replied with an exhaustive analysis of the industrial situation. Dealing with the suggestion made by Mr. Clynes, that this country should resume relations with Russia as a means of reducing unemployment, he declared that anyone who supposed the readmisBion of the Soviet Embassy would make the slightest contribution to the problem of unemployment was misleading himself and would mislead others.

It was very easy to say that the present industrial situation was the fault of the Government, but it was far easier to say and easier to prove that a large part of it was the fault of the Labour party. Had Mr. Clynes forgotten the general strike and the prolonged coal stoppage of 1926? Through these we had bean thrown back two or three years behind the onward march of other nations.

The reserves of industry were exhausted during that period, and the IMources of the State to aid that misfortune had been grievously impaired. Bad the Labour party not admitted their responsibility ? Had there not been an effort on the part of the responsible leaders of Labour to establish a different and saner policy? Were not the Communists being excluded from Labour party politics ? Was not Russian interference being repulsed in domestic affairs, and was not Mr. A. J. Cook, who led the miners in 1926, being discredited ? These were signs of amendment which were welcome, but they were too late.

The price of 1926 had to be paid. The problem of unemployment was wide and mysterious. There was heavy unemployment in the United States, and in Russia, under the most ruthless expression of Socialism, there was also very heavy unemployment. Neither of these countries was making anything like the provision to succour the unemployed that was being made here.

He ; believed, that in the yeans before the war there ;were daily less than 300,000 or 400,000 unemployed. There were now 1,874,000 unemployed. By the Great War ft large part of the wealth of Britain and the world had been consumed. The world •11 round had grown much bigger, and countries which were quite ready before the war to buy our various manufactures wished to make things themselves.

Vigorous competitors met us in every foreign market, and our customers increasingly closed their doons upon our wares. We were wounded beyond all other producing countries with debt and taxation. Mr. Churchill pointed out that besides the great masses of persons under the unemployment insurance scheme there were at present 224,000 women upon the unemployed lists who were scarcely ever included in any other total. Then there were coal miners. Until three years ago 1,300,000 persons were engaged in the coal industry; now there were only 920,000.

Mr. Walter Runciman (Lib. Swansea) said that all the Ministerial assurances that the bad trade was passing had been falsified. The safeguarding of indusdustries policy would not bring relief to the basic trades. The gravest and the greatest problem was the position of the coal, cotton and wool trades, and unless they found better ways of using their coal there was no hope for many parts of the coalfields. The cotton trade crisis was by no means past. Poverty was becoming chronic in parts of Lancashire, and their woollens were suffering a loss of foreign markets. A recovery of the world trade could only come from an extension of personal energy and the use of brains, courage, confidence and skill. Sir Robert Horne (Con., Glasgow) said that many of the unemployed would, before the war, have emigrated. He hoped Empire settlement would be accelerated. He said he did not believe that oil would permanently displace coal, and that better ways of using coal would be devised. Probably in the near future pulversied coal would be blown in to ships' boilers as easily as oil, through a a pipe line. Iron and steel should be given a chance of proving the case for safeguarding. The steel trade was essentially the very existence of the nation. Sir Oswald Mosley (Lab. Southwark) said that if the aged could te removed from industry and youth delayed by raising the school-leaving age, it would go a long way to solve unemployment. Mr. Herbert Williams, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, replying, said that as soon as a first-class process of the distillation of oil from coal was discovered there would be no need of Government assistance. No commercially practical process had yet been evolved, but the trade processes were improving tremendously. Possibly there would be some unemployment as a temporary reaction, resulting in cheapened production, which might mean the beginning of a revival.

The debate was adjourned.