SPEECH BY MR WILSON

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25548, 16 July 1948, Page 6

SPEECH BY MR WILSON

CRITICISM BY MR WATTS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, July 15. A serious difference of opinion among members of the Labour Party on foreign policy was alleged -by Mr J. T. Watts (Opposition, St. Albans) when he spoke in the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives this afternoon. Mr Watts referred to the speech made earlier in the week by Mr Ormond Wilson (Government, Palmerston North), who, he said, obviously spoke for the left wing of the Labour Party. ( Mr Wilson’s statements quite obviously did not have the approval of the Prime Minister (Mr P. Fraser), Mr Watts said. Mr Wilson had claimed that if war came countries in the British Commonwealth would not be prepared to fight for American capitalism. Apparently, according to Mr Wilson, they would be prepared to fight on the other side. That was for Soviet Russia. "It is time that those who feel as Mr Wilson does should go out and tell their electors where they stand about these matters, about Communism and about Soviet Russia,”. said Mr Watts. Referring to the early history of the Labour Party, Mr Watts said that its present attempts to disown Communism were pathetic.