EARLY ELECTION IN BRITAI

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25307, 6 October 1947, Page 7

EARLY ELECTION IN BRITAI

Forecast Made By

Mr Churchill “SOCIALISTS NOW A MINORITY” (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, October 4. Addressing a mass demonstration of tiie Conservative Party in Brighton, Mr Winston Churchill said the Conservatives had every reason to believe that the Socialist Government was now a substantial minority, and was ruling without support against the wishes of the larger part of the nation. It would be most imprudent not to be ready for a General Election at any time in 1947 or 1948. Mr Churchill, whose speech was televised to two overflow meetings in other halls, spoke mostly on home affairs, but in . a preliminary reference to the Empire, said that, in the melancholy tale of the casting-away of the British Empire in India and the misfortune and slaughter which were falling on the Indian peoples, all the blame could not be thrown on one party. The Socialist Government, however. had thrown itself with zeal into the task of destroying Britain’s long-built-up, splendid structure in the East, and had brought widespread ruin, misery, and bloodshed upon the Indian masses to an extent no one could measure. * Mr Churchill declared that the Conservative Party would attack the Government by every means in its power in order to achieve the “first step to national recovery”—the departure of the Socialist Government, many of whose inroads into Britain’s liberties wore the aspect of a Nazi, Communist, or Fascist totalitarian State. Economic Crisis At home, the imminent economic crisis would not be mastered except by the election of a new House of Commons representing the Nation's strength and wisdom. There were, two flagrant untruths ip the Socialist propaganda. First, it was claimed, that the period between the wars, during most of which there was a Conservative Party majority, was a kind of dark age. On the contrary, it was a period of marked, steady social improvement. The second Socialist legend was that the Conservative Party was not concerned about employment, and would even welcome a certain amount of/unemployment as a stimulus to production. The Socialists spoke with admiration about the White Paper on employment, but this was produced under the Churchill Government. Lord Woolton was its author, and the Socialists had not added a single current idea. If the Socialists praised the White Paper, they had not the right to say the Conservatives had no employment policy. Mr Churchill, turning to the Conservative Party's future policy, said hp could not think of anything more -foolish than that the party, without the power to act, or the machinery of the Government at its disposal, should commit itself to a detailed programme of executive action. Certainly while he led the party, it would not attempt to bribe its way into office by promises it knew it could never fulfil, or try to outbid the Socialist Government in its levelling policies. Industrial Charter The industrial Charter, which was the Conservative Party's official policy, showed plainly the broad, democratic view the party took of current affairs. The Conservative Party, once a basic minimum standard of life and labour had been established, proposed to set the people free as quicWy as possible from the restrictions now besetting their daily life. Above this minimum standard would be free competition, with everyone at liberty to make the best of himself by all the means that his honour and the law allowed. The price mechanism would then be allowed to w r ork again according to the principle of supply and demand. Certain basic steps must first be taken. The distortion of finances must be corrected, Wasteful Government expenditure, particularly abroad, must be reduced, and the savings given in tax reliefs. The present food shortages were the result pf no failure of Nature. “Do not believe fantastic tales that the modern world, with all its science, is broke and ruined,” said Mr Churchill. ‘‘Crazy doctrines, clumsy fingers, and vicious, morbid trends of policy are manufacturing shortages and misery.” First of all its objectives, the Conservative Party placed the unity of the British Commonwealth. The partv was not prepared to barter away Imperial preferences. Even in his ware time relations with President Roose-? velt, he always safeguarded the imperial preference principle, added Mr Churchill, and this had never impeded the growth of , British and American friendship. There was noth? ing incompatible in his advocacy of a united Europe, unless one were tied to a choice betwedp two rigid customs unions in jthe full technical sense of the word. Canada’s participation in Empire preference had never stood in the way of her special economic relations with the United States. Neither need the British Empire, with a European economic policy, conflict with the United States’ policy.