The Press SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1938. A No-Confidence Amendment

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22443, 2 July 1938, Page 14

The Press SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1938. A No-Confidence Amendment

The Leader of the Opposition, who has tabled a no-confidence amendment to the Address-in-Reply, knows as v/ell as anybody who can count heads that his amendment will be heavily defeated. He will probably be criticised by Labour supporters outside the House those who sit on the Government benches will hardly be so foolish—on the ground that he will be wasting the time of Parliament in a futile test of strength. The amendment is not a test of strength in that sense, which is afforded, of course, every time the division bells ring on a true party issue. It is a test of another kind. It explicitly states the Opposition’s challenge to the Government and compels an explicit answer; and those electors will be wise who regard the debate on the motion and the amendment as their best opportunity of thoroughly informing themselves about the two parties and the questions on which they are divided. During the election campaign, the debate will be continued; but it will be continued in conditions much less favourable. Much will be said that cannot immediately be checked and answered. The debaters will be scattered through their electorates. Major, national issues will tend to be narrowed into local and personal ones. The noise and heat of election contests raise public interest but do not in the same degree sharpen judgment, while they inevitably produce appeals and arguments which are aimed at a lower mark than reason—at the weaknesses of self-interest, prejudice, and herd-emotion. These disadvantages of a campaign do not attend the debate in Parliament, in which the no-confidence amendment brings the Government under the necessity of fully declaring and defending itself.

In another article we have something to say about the Government’s predicament in being committed, by formal resolution of the Labour Party, to a policy which Ministers do their best to disguise, if they do not disavow it, in public statements. One of the Government speakers who introduced the Address-in-Reply resolution was more frank; but it remains to be seen if the Prime Minister and his colleagues will commit themselves even so far as Mr Roberts. The no-confidence amendment is first and foremost a challenge upon this issue. The Government’s position is that, while socialisation is its party principle and socialisation has been the increasing effect of one measure after another, it still seeks, and cannot afford to miss, the support of electors who reject socialisation as a policy and dislike even its expedients; and therefore Ministers have, before the public, held their Socialism behind their backs and professed the warmest friendship for private enterprise. The amendment is a demand, which they cannot easily.evade, that they should show what is in the other hand —or drop it and repudiate it. In the main, the various clauses of the amendment are designed to press the issue of socialisation in the specific forms suggested by the Government’s legislative record. It is surprising, however, that no reference appears among them to the plain case of a socialistic monopoly set up in the Iron and Steel Industry Act. One clause is of special interest, as it assails the Government’s policy in foreign relations. It is vaguely and badly aimed; and a clause condemning the Government’s total inactivity and want of policy in immigration would have been more useful and quite unanswerable. The clause, finally, in which the Government’s failure to fulfil three or four distinct election pledges is assailed is one which strikes the Government in a very weak spot. Ministers have been called upon many times previously to justify themselves in respect of these broken pledges: they have done everything but answer fairly and to the point. Electors whose patience has been sufficient to bear with their evasions till new may well decide to make this occasion critical. Further evasion here, as on other questions in the amendment, should finally fix the Government’s level in trustworthiness; and an electorate to which that is made clear will have taken broom in hand for a clean sweep.