SAFEGUARDING AND UNITY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19941, 30 May 1930, Page 19

SAFEGUARDING AND UNITY.

CONSERVATIVE ELECTION PROGRAMME. REFERENDUM ON POOD TAXES. (VB.OU OUB OWH COBBESroNDEKT.) LONDON, April 24. Great enthusiasm was evident when Mr Baldwin made his political speech at the Primrose League demonstration last week. The Albert Hall was filled to its topmost tier. "Events have been moving fast," ho said, "and I would draw your attention to the passage of the Coal Lill in the House of Commons. 1 want to call your attention to it for one purpose, and one purpose only, because it bears directly on your programme. That measure is a measure of bare-faced and bald-headed protection of so elementary a kind that we would not touch it. "The Labour Government has shown to the world that in any case where they think wages too low it is permissible to secure those wages by statute, and in that process to raise the price of a necessary of life to the British people. "That sweeps away at once the whole of the theoretical objection that lias always been made on the platform to any form of Protection on the grounds that it may raise prices against the consumer. I use the word 'may' advisedly. It does not follow of necessity. In this up-to-date Protection of the Labour Party, prices will be raised directly against the consumer. I want you to remember that. I want you to study the working of this Act, and I want you to turn the weapons of our opponents—Socialists and Liberal alike—against their own breasts when the fight begins.

Unity of the Empire. "The sound and solid planks on which we stand now and at the forthcoming election, and afterwards, are safeguarding and the economic unity of the Empire. I have put safeguarding first, becauso it is our intention to proceed with safeguarding the moment we are returned to powe"r. I have asked for and desire to have and shall obtain a free hand in safeguarding where the Government may consider it necessary for the protection of the labour of our own people against cheaper labour, or inferior conditions, or against dumping in any country of the world. I want it as a weapon to use in negotiating treaties with Protectionist countries —in my view the onlv way in which you are going to obtain a lowering °* duties and concessions in tariffs.'

Dominion Produce. Later Mr Baldwin referred to interImperial trade. "Tho problem of industrial rationalisation," he said, "is largely a problem of the industrialists both in the Dominions and at Home. The great problem for Governments is in what we may be able to make treaties among ourselves that would urge forward the realisation of those ideals which are held on both sides of the seas. "Now if it should be in the negotiation of such treaties or such arrangements that in exchange for substantial benefits to our manufacturing industries the Dominions require some corresponding benefits for themselves in the way of foodstuffs which they can so amply provide, and that to further that it would be necessary to put taxation upon foreign foodstuffs in this country—then we are resolved that if that he the outcome of a conference after the next Government comes into office, we will submit that treaty to the people of this country, that they may see exactly what is intended, and may vote by poll upon it and say 'Aye' or 'Nay.' (Cheers.) "I adhere to the simple pledge which I gave at the Cecil, that I am not going to ask the country to vote on food taxes at the election. The only case in which food taxes can arise will be such a case as I have described, and the people of this country will have a free poll. . , "They will not be subject to food taxes until they know what they are voting for, and if they have them they will have them by their own desire and consent Nothing could be more democratic than that ana nothing more clear." Finallv came a powerful appeal tor unity. We were certainlv a nation or grousers, said Mr Baldwin, _ rather sadly. It was really a bad thing, because we were apt to be taken at onr word. Even a friend like M. Clemenceau thought he saw signs of lassitude. Wns there nnvth ; n<" behind nil this pessimism? Mr' Baldwin, for one. declined to entertain the suspicion. Fntrlishmen, after all, had done a few things. ■ , . . "Drop nagging and heresy-hunt-ing," was his ndvioo to his rarty. Victory could only be won by a band of brothers."