SOCIAL POLICIES IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23880, 24 February 1943, Page 3

SOCIAL POLICIES IN BRITAIN

BEVERIDGE PLAN AND GOVERNMENT

“TIMOROUS APPROACH” CONDEMNED (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) - LONDON, Feb. 22. It is believed in several quarters in London that last week’s political crisis over the Beveridge Report is by no means over, and that it will recur if the-Government does not give the lead the country expects and desires. The “Economist” says: ‘The Beveridge Plan laid bare some of the basic issues on which the future of freedom depends. On every occasion when the democracies have • been called on to make crucial decisions they have delayed, temporised, and bargained. Their policies have been ‘too late and too little.’ Is it to be so again? “If it is, then the floodgates are open. It was because of the timorous, lukewarm approach of the democracies that the Nazis, poor in ability, but rough and ruthless in method, were admitted to power. If the same timorousness and lukewarmness is shown in Britain to-day towards the military opportunities which so plainly present themselves or towards the social opportunities of the Beveridge Plan, then the way will be prepared for the totalitarian creeds of both the Left and Right, with the Fascists as the final victors.”

The “Observer,” on the same question, said that the House of Commons was divided not into parties but into two broad divisions—the progressives and the anti-progressives. The present coalition had always been fragile, being the child of military defeat and an offspring of the invasion of Norway. Its fragility increased ,3s: the danger which drew men together receded. “Public discussion of the broader questions sf the war and of. opr international aims and plans for post-war construction have been, in the main, postponed until the people could no longer be denied,” the “Observer” continues. “All the reasons for postponement are • given except the true and dangerous one—that the cleavage of opinion in the House of Commons, though not in the country,, is so wide as to threaten the Government’s, life.’ The “Observer” adds that it should not be thought that this difference of opinion affects in any way the vigorous prosecution of the war.

PEACE OFFENSIVE TOWARDS ITALY

EVIDENCE SEEN OF U.S. MOVE

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Feb. 22. “Evidence accumulates,” says the United Press of America, “that the United States is making a strong peace offensive towards Italy. Mr Roosevelt to-day conferred with high State Department officials and experts in world affairs, including the United States envoy to the Vatican (Mr Myron Tay“The Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Huh) said that Mr Taylor’s presence did not necessarily indicate that Italy was discussed, as the conference was of a general nature.” The United Press adds that another possible straw in the wind is the visit of Archbishop Spellman (Catholic Archbishop of New York) to the Vatican. The Pope to-day gave audience to Archbishop Spellman for the third time.

TALKS WITH ITALIAN GENERALS

“SORROW, HOPELESSNESS, AND DISAPPOINTMENT”

NEW YORK, Feb. 22. The Mayor of New York (Mr F. H. La Guardia), in a broadcast to Italy, disclosed that he had talked with General Annibale Bergonzoli and eight other high-ranking Italian military officers. They appeared, he said, a group of frustrated, hopeless men. [The Associated Press recalls that the Italian newspaper “Popolo dTtaha recently reported that General Bergonzoli had been taken to Washington as a war prisoner.] Mr La Guardia said: “We recalled old friends of the first World War. The generals indicated that those were happier days. When I told them that Mussolini had dismissed General Scuero, Under-Secretary of War, they expressed unanimous displeasure and disappointment and they were also united in scorn of his successor, General Sorice. “The generals controlled their words but they could not control their feelings. When I asked if they had any message for the people of Italy, they shrugged their shoulders and asked, in a tone of despair and hopelessness, ‘What can we say?’ ” Mr La Guardia commented: “I saw in this tableau of sorrow, hopelessness, and disappointment, a way for the Italian people beyond the dead end of Fascism. When that barrier is removed the United States will be ready to bring immediate help and support for the regeneration of the people of Italy.” The group included General Gszzeri, former War Minister and Governor of Abyssinia; General Trezzani, former Governor of East Africa; General Desimone, former Governor of Somaliland; General Manella, a divisional commander in Libya; and also Generals Guasco, Cona. and Frusci, and Air Marshal Pinna.

British Corvette Lost.—The British Admiralty has announced the loss .of the corvette Sandfire—Rugby, February 22. ,