ACHIEVEMENTS IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28543, 24 March 1958, Page 11

ACHIEVEMENTS IN BRITAIN

Mr Macmillan’s Review

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.in.) LONDON, Mar. 21. The Brutish Prime Minister, Mr Macmillan, listed remarkable British post-war achievements in a fighting speech at the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinzaer in London tonight. “Today our factories produce 70 per cent, more than before the war,” he sa id. “In agriculture, output is 60 per cent, higher. Since 1945 we h.azve built nearly three million houses. We are opening 10 new schools a week. “Our civil engineers undertake contracts overseas at a rate of £ 100 milliiion a year,” he went on. “lii the? last 10 years we have exported three and a quarter million motor-cars. Nearly half the world’s exports of agricultural tractors are British. All the 300 gas turbine airliners in service in the Western world have been built in Efcritain. “Our sliipbuilders are building the two largest liners under construction in any dockyards in the world. We invest overseas a higher amount a head than any other nation. “We operate the first nuclear power station to be put into commercial wise. And now there is Zeta (the thermo-nuclear reactor). That doesn’t suggest we lack vitality, vigour and inventiveness.

“Of course, we are going to have our difficult times, our ups and downs. . . . But we have always been equal to the challenge in the past, and if we are true to ourselves we shall be equal to it again,” Mr Macmillan said. “We have made fortunes and spent them. Today we have to set about making a new fortune. How much more fun to make a fortune than to have it.”

Turning to international problems, Mr Macmillan said that disillusionment after a negative and unsatisfactory summit meeting might be followed by “something like despair.” He wanted summit talks and he waited them to achieve some real success. There must be proper 1 preparatory work. “I should be satisfied with a limited advance if it were clear and definite,” he said.

On the hydrogen bomb, he said there was nothing to be gained by being half-hearted about a deterrent policy. “If we believe we should defend our civilisation and our ways of life then we should be prepared to defend it whatever the cost.” “The Arms Race” On the arms race, Mr Macmillan said: “The sooner we can stop this unholy competition by general disarmament the better. ‘“lt is not the arms race itself which causes war. The causes are far deeper than that. What prevents war is the balance of power.

“Peace has been preserved so far, not because the West has disarmed, but because the present balance is roughly equal. “I would not like to be responsible for the outcome if we were to abandon that balance.” Referring to the East Coast rocket sites to be established, Mr Macmillan said: “I cannot believe that if we start now to dig foundations and prepare cement for rocket bases for weapons which have not yet been delivered, Mr Khrushchev will be so hurt —or his inner feelings so wounded—that all his policy will change or the whole Russian relationship with Britain and the West be fatally poiisoned.” Answering critics who want nuclear tests suspended by Britain unilaterally, he said: “A gesture may sometimes be magnificezut, but it is seldom a policy.

“We need in addition to firmness, imagination. We must have a piositive side to our policy,” he said.