HECTIC TOUR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 147, 23 June 1945, Page 5

HECTIC TOUR

CHURCHILL'S PLANS

Caustic Criticism Levelled By Manchester Guardian

N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, June 22

Thousands of people cheered the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, when he stopped at Uxbridge and delivered a brief election address from the back seat of a car on his way to Chequers, where he is spending the week-end before embarking on a tour of England and Scotland, in which he plans to make at least 50 short speeches. Mr. Churchill's tour will coyer 1000 miles through the Midlands and North-west England to Glasgow and Edinburgh and back, lasting four days. He will be travellingby car in the daytime, and at n'ight will join a special train, in which he will sleep. The Manchester Guardian, in a leader on Mr. Churchill's election speeches under the heading, "The Bad Wolf," says the Prime Minister, like his party newspapers, puts all his money on the Laski hare.

It is one of the most extraordinary things that has happened in the history of British elections," says the paper. "It is easy to say that though the voice is that of the Prime Minister the typescript is probably that of Mr. Brendan Bracken or Lord Beaverbrook, but none the less Mr. Churchill has lent himself to cheap, grotesque argument. Mr. Churchill's descent is the measure of the political degeneration of his party. It must try to frighten us with the big, bad wolf, even if the wolf happens to be s*o pious a preacher as Sir Stafford Cripps or so tame a professor asLaski.

"How Mr. Churchill must miss that big, bad wolf of the Steppes that once served him so well—that wolf that really had teeth and could growl."

Exacting Task in Europe

"If the Coalition Government cannot be carried on until the end of the Japanese war it is really vital that Mr. Churchill and his colleagues should know at the earliest moment where they stand with the electorate," says the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, in a written election address. Owing to illness he is unable to conduct a campaign. He added the most exacting, urgent task in Europe was the rebuilding and maintaining of peace. Everything else .depended on its success. Plans for improvements at home would be useless if this were not . accomplished. "I believe the San Francisco Conference will be successful and then an important first step, but only a first step, will have been won. If to this we can add frank, close and cordial co-operation among the United States, Russia and the British Commonwealth we shall have made real progress. In all these great world events, conference and discussions, we will continue to act always in the closest harmony with the Dominions. The tasks we had to face in this war have been tremendous and they are not finished yet" New Zealand Candidates . The Labour party's announcement that Mr. John Platts-Mills, formerly of Wellington, has been selected as candidate for Finsbury (London) means that two New Zealanders are standing in the general election, the other being Captain R. L. Lowndes, of Gisborne, Conservative candidate for Clapham (London), states the New Zealand Press Association special correspondent. Mr. Platts-Mills, who was a 1928 Rhodes Scholar, was educated at Nelson College and Victoria University. He attained his B.A. degree at Balliol College, Oxford, and was a distinguished boxer and rower. He is now a barrister and recently volunteered as a "Bevin boy," working in a coalmine. . . Rev. G. S. Woods won Finsbury for Labour in 1935 with a majority of 2808,' but he is not seeking reelection and Mr. Platts-Mills is opposed by Squadron-Leader F. A. Burdon, a Conservative, in a straight fight:-7r .;.;<;>','.:...^:-n'