ATTLEE LETTER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 152, 29 June 1945, Page 5

ATTLEE LETTER

TORIES TROUNCED

Electors Urged To Keep Eyes On Central Issues

N.Z. Press Association—Copyright

Rec. 1 p.m.

LONDON, June 28.

Nothing could be more harmful to Britain's post-war economic and social welfare than that the Tories should again have charge of the nation's affairs, said Mr. Attlee, leader of the Parliamentary Labour party, in a letter to Labour candidates in the general election.

"There has never been greater need for electors to keep their minds fixed on central issues and resist last-minute attempts to stampede public opinion on the eve of the poll," Mr. Attlee proceeded. "Scares are a familiar Tory device. The Tory record of muddle and failure between the two wars provides a sharp warning which the people will do well to heed unless they prefer to delude themselves with false hopes and indulge in vain regrets later. We did not fight to win the war for private profit or for any selfish end but to preserve the people's right to live in freedom and increase their opportunities by their own industry. The Tories want to hand us back into the keeping of private profit-seeking enterprise, which was responsible for the mass of unemployment, derelict areas, waste and misery between the two wars. That, in the light of bitter experience, would be folly.

"We Labourites reject policies and measures which failed the nation then and will fail the nation now. We want to lay the foundations of a new and better Britain, worthy of our great people. That is why we propose in the interests of the whole nation that the community should become the master of its economic progress and prosperity instead of leaving control in private hands to be used primarily for private advantage of the few. We, in short, stand for the common weal, but we need political power to enable us to give practical effect in Parliament to great forward-looking policies. The nation now has the chance to give Labour the necessary power to do the job."