BRITISH CRITICS OF SOCIALISM

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26039, 16 February 1950, Page 5

BRITISH CRITICS OF SOCIALISM

CHAIRMAN OF LABOUR PARTY REPLIES

LINK WITH COMMUNISM DENIED

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, February 14. The chairman of the British Labour Party (Mr Maurice Webb), who is a candidate for the Bradford Central

seat in the House of Commons, has replied to Labour critics who contend that socialism is a stepping-stone to

In an article published by the Labour Party newspaper, the “Daily Herald,” Mr Webb says: “The truth is that this is the most baseless and nonsensical arguir dec’

.xgument of all those now being paraded as ‘constructive Conservative thought.’ The real bulwark against the advance of communism—indeed, the •only creed capable of arresting its growth—is the democratic policy of the Labour Party. “The only possible chance of communism gaining an influence in our politics lies in the return of Toryism, with its ide£s of rule by big business. Let the Tories get power again, and at once the conditions in which communism prospers would prevail. “The Tories’ economic policies would let lose again the forces of slump and depression. Their social policies would revive the gross inequalities which the Labour Government has done so much to abolish. They would see that those who paid their insurance contributions to Lord Woolton’s millions got their benefits—in the restoration of their old privileges. “It would be back once again to the Britain of poverty amidst plenty—to vulgar ostentation alongside acute want. And that situation is the most fertile breeding ground of communism.

“It is in those conditions, when ordinary folk feel neglected and impoverished, that they find attractions in the Communist Party’s case. Only by using the instruments of freedom to secure economic order and greater social justice—as Labour is doing—can the country find an effective answer to the creed of the totalitarians. That is why Communists everywhere in the world have marked down the Labour parties and Social Democrats as the first of all organisations to be destroyed.”