MR EDEN SPEAKS AT LIVERPOOL

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26031, 7 February 1950, Page 5

MR EDEN SPEAKS AT LIVERPOOL

VIEW OF ELECTION ISSUE PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AND STATE CONTROL LONDON, February 1. Opening the Conaervative Party's official election campaign. Mr AnthonyEden, deputy-leader of the party, said at Liverpool that the issue was whether Britain would evolve towards wider ownership of property by the people, or towards its tighter concentration in the hands of the State. The basir

reality of the national position was that within the next year or two, Britain must face economic problems as grave as any it had knowp. "More nationalisation is threatened, but for the present 80 per cent, of our industry is still tree enterprise, and upon that 80 per cent. Iles virtually tbe whole responsibility for carrying the export drive through to success" said Mr Eden. “It is a formidable task upon which our future national life quite literally depends. “At the same time as the Socialist Ministers exhort our export industries to greater efforts, they pile on an everincreasing burden of taxation. They craek the whip, they shout encouragement, but they are cumbersome passengers and they add to the load. It might be better if they got oft and walked themselves.” There were people in many lands now who saw socialism, not as the champion of democracy, but as an ineffective leaky dam against the Communist menace, Mr Eden added.