CONSERVATIVE PARTY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25306, 4 October 1947, Page 9

CONSERVATIVE PARTY

ANNUAL CONGRESS AT BRIGHTON

MR EDEN SPEAKS ON Crisis measures LONDON, October 2. ■ The way out oi the present crisis depended on immediate steps to stop inflation, aft intensive production drive, the development of. overseas markets, and a permanent policy for development, within the system Of preferences, of the Empire’s resources, Said Mr Anthony Eden, in art address at the Conservative Party’s sixty-eighth annual congress at Brighton. Britain’s exports should come out of greater production, so that Britons shared in plenty rather than in scarcities. There should be no more nationalisation, and controls should be streamlined. He emphasised that there was nothing incompatible between Empire trade and the importance of plans with Western Europe for increased production and a mutual exchange of goods. Foreign policy and defence must be thought out in imperial terms, and a reduction in expenditure on defence should be part Of an agreed Empire plan. Britain must not allow het forces to fall into a condition ift which they would be incapable of meeting international commitments; The conference approved the industrial charter Which Mr R. A. Butler presented as a pamphlet in May. The conference recommended that the committee which prepared the charter should be kept in being SO that it could, at short notice, publish an industrial programme based on the charter. The conference unanimously adopted a resolution accusing the Government of failing to meet the economic crisis, and also passed a resolution calling for a “charter of liberties” guaranteeing that the inviolability of the ageold freedoms of the British peoples would be placed in the forefront of the Conservative Party’s policy. The approval of the industrial charter was a victory for the young Conservatives. Keen opposition had been expected from members who thought it went too far to the Left.

Mr Eden, by implication, gave it his blessing, and the leader, of the young Conservatives, z7-year-old Mr Anthony Nutting, assured its success with a forthright speech. There were onlv three dissentients from the motion of approval, among them being Sir Waldron Smithers, who called the charter “milk and water Socialism.”

London newspapers, reporting Mr Fden’s speech, describe the points he listed as the Conservative Party’s policy. The “Evening News” says: “Mr Eden offered a Torv policy for a way ahead out of ‘this spivs’ paradise.’ ”