LABOUR PARTY IN BRITAIN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 14081, 10 June 1946, Page 3

LABOUR PARTY IN BRITAIN

OPENING OF ANNUAL CONFERENCE Declared Policy Being Carried Out Many Complaints Against Mr Bevin London, June 9. The British Labour Party will open its annual conference to-mor-row and as one correspondent says, the delegates will be in a jubilant mood. Their party has a big majority in the House of Commons and they all seem to be agreed that its declared policy is being carried out. It is on foreign affairs, the correspondent says, that there may be some hard hitting. There are scores of resolutions complaining that Mr Ernest Bevin has forsaken Socialist principles for the sake of preserving continuity in Britain’s foreign relations. Mr Bevin will be there himself to answer his critics. The issue whether the Communist Party should be admitted into the Labour fold has already been settled beyond , question. The local Labour Parties and the unions have, in the big majority of cases, entrusted their delegates to vote against the Communist application, but with the future uncertain and with the Communists already holding powerful positions in several European countries, there may be a closer vote on a proposal by the Labour, Party Executive to alter the party’s constitution so as to bar forever association with the Communists. Some Labour leaders feel that the door should be kept open in case it becomes necessary one day to make a European agreement with the Communists.

On the eve of the Labour Party conference the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Dr. Hugh Dalton) said to-night, “We must make it clear to Moscow that the British Socialist movement can have no truck with the British Communist Party. We and the Russians must meet on a basis of moral equality and mutual respect. They have their ways, we have ours.”

On home affairs Dr Dalton said that an early reduction of the present high taxation could not be expected. This was because of the big programme of social security and national health which the government intends to pass during the present Parliamentary session. As Dr Dalton put it, “We must move along a middle path between deflation and inflation.” The risk of inflation was already being reduced by the steadily increasing output of goods for the home markets. Another Labour speech to-night, was by Mr Herbert Morrison, Leader of the House of Commons,' who said, “The policy of the government is definitely Socialist. We have proceeded with a seines of socialisation bills and there are more to come.”