MR CHURCHILL SPEAKS ON ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26030, 6 February 1950, Page 7

MR CHURCHILL SPEAKS ON ELECTION

“Britain Deeply Divided Nation”

LIBERAL PARTY POLICY CRITICISED

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, February 4. “Britain is facing her hardest peace-time task as a deeply divided nation,” said the leader of the Conservative Party (Mr Churchill) to an election meeting to-night at Leeds. American subsidies would end at the latest in 1952, while German and Japanese competition in all the export markets upon which Britain depended had already begun, and would grow more severe. “Even if all our strength were united, we should be confronted with the hardest task we have ever faced in time of peace, but we are deeply divided. Class warfare has rent the unities and comradeship which brought us through the war. Party politics dominate the scene,” he said.

Mr Churchill sharply accused the official Liberal Party, led by Mr Clement Davies, of having openly avowed its desire to cause a deadlock, so that the handful of" members who folslowed his guidance might hold the balance and dominate the scene. It was undemocratic to work for the return of minority candidates, said Mr Churchill, and thus frustrate the expression of the nation’s will. He did not believe that such tactics would succeed.

In another sally against the Liberals Mr Churchill said that, like Labour, the Conservatives supported compulsory training as necessary for peace. *lf Britain repudiated national service at this election, as the Liberals ask, it would mean the downfall of 'the whole of the great structure emfbodied in the Brussels Treaty, the • Atlantic Pact, in Western Union, in 'the whole idea of the English-speak-ing world, and, of course, of the unified British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations. Once again we ...would be in danger of the most horrible of all fates—a third world war.” Mr Churchill said that the Conservatives did not intend to seek compulsory powers to lengthen the term of national service. “Having handled these things before. I feel that unless the foreign situation gets worse, which I don’t think it will, although I may be wrong, a considerable reduction in the burden of defence expense might be combined with stronger fighting power and better conditions for the troops.” Western Europe Referring to Western Europe, Mr Churchill said that the Germans had rapidly built themselves up with Allied aid. rightly given, from almost nothing to an active community “working like demons and eating well amid the ruins.” Germany’s recovery should not be underrated, he said. “I am glad of it. I want to work with them and the French. We three, together with Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and several other countries outside the Iron Curtain, all constitute a vast solid organisation of free, civilised, democratic peoples which once forged and riveted together is not likely to be molested.” Mr Churchill, saying that he had worked in peace and war on the side of France for more than 40 years, warned that the kind of “political whirligig under which France lives, which is such fun for its politicians and all the little ardent parties into which they are divided, would be fatal to Britain.” French politics did not accord with the' British character, nor with the

grim facts of British life. France was a self-supporting country. Mr Churchill said that he was sure that a coalition between men and parties as the result of petty bargains, deals and compromises would be of no use. There must be a common bond of union, as in 1940, to "lead to that melting of hearts where sacrifice seems to be indulgence and pain becomes joy, and when life rises to its highest level because death has no terrors.” If she could achieve that state of mind again, Britain would once more rise in her unconquerable strength. Labour’s Hopes Mr Churchill said that the election was being held at the date chosen by Mr Attlee in the hope of obtaining a new lease of office before another inevitable rise in living costs arrived. Mr Attlee had not dared to produce the Budget which, if it had been honest, would certainly have been unpopular. The Supplementary Estimates, even above the immense expenditure of £3.300.000.000 budgeted for last year, had been kept in the background.

The main cause of Britain’s plight, said Mr Churchill, had been the waste, disorder and uncertainty arising from nationalisation. All nationalised industries either showed actual losses in the accounts, which fall upon the Exchequer, or increased prices and reduced services to the public. This had done harm—most harm to the trade unions concerned, who had ceased to be able to give wholehearted service to their members because they owed policy and party allegiance to the executive government. Mr Churchill said that on election eve the Socialists had second thoughts about the threat to nationalise industrial life insurance. They feared that they might lose votes by offending the numerous agents who had done so much to popularise thrift. “The commercial and industrious greatness of this island at the beginning of my life was unrivalled in the world. All its businesses and firms and small employers and careful and obliging shopkeepers were the result of much wisdom and virtue. All this was not built up. as the Socialists believe, by exploiting the masses,” Mr Churchill said.