BRITISH LABOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1936, Page 24

BRITISH LABOUR

CENSURE OF CRIPPS

ATTACK ON STATEMENTS

The executive committee of the Labour Party on November 25 readmitted Sir William Jowitt, X.C.to membership of the party and severely censured Sir Stafford Cripps, K.C., for a recent reference to war, invasion, and conscription, says the Labour correspondent of "The Times." Sir William Jowitt was AttorneyGeneral in the last Labour Government, and when the crisis came in 1931 threw in his lot with the National Government. He failed to secure a seat in the succeeding Parliament. Sir Stafford Cripps, the Solicitor-General in the Labour Government, went with the official Labour Party in 1931, but now he is repudiated and Sir William Jowitt is accepted. The resolution referring to Sir Stafford Cripps was as follows: — "The national executive of the' Labour Party unanimously dissociates itself from and categorically repudiates the views expressed by Sir Stafford Cripps regarding the position of the British working classes in the event of a defeat in war, and his expressed desire for the introduction of a conscription Act for * propaganda purposes; It- declares that these opinions do not reflect the mind of the British Labour movement, and it regrets that a prominent member of the Labour Party should have given public expression to views which are so completely at variance with Labour's aims and policy.'1 , THE LEFT WING. . Sir, Stafford Cripps is reported to have said that if Germany should defeat Britain in* a capitalist and international war, he did ( not believe it would be at all a bad thing for the British working classes; a disaster (he added) for the profit-makers and capitalists, but not necessarily for the working classes. When Sir Stafford .Cripps complained that the report of his speech was inaccurate a transcript of a shorthand note of the disputed passage was printed, and the summary now' given is taken from that transcript. Another bit of bother is brewing in a proposal for a "united front" of the SociaHst League, the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the Independent Labour Party. Sir Stafford Cripps is still a prominent member, though no longer the chairman, of the Socialist League, which is one of the constituent organisations of the Labour Party. The proposal, which is in private circulation among the leaders of the three bodies, is that they should combine together to press upon the Labour Party a policy of mass resistance to re-armament, to the recruiting campaign, and to - the Government's foreign policy, particularly in relation to regional -pacts, but carefully providing that this attitude must not preclude' the Communist Party from supporting the Franco-Soviet Pact and any other agreement of the same kind. In home affairs this "united front" policy would include abolition of the means test for unemployment assistance. For an. organisation within the Labour Party to join with two other organisations excluded from the party in order to change the party's policy would be a serious breach of party discipline. SIR WALTER CITRINE. Any tendency of Left Wing organisations to co-operate will strengthen those in other sections of the Labour Party who desire a cutting adrift of bodies which compromise the directness of the party's appeal to the country. Great interest is taken in Labour quarters in the association of Sir Walter Citrine, the secretary of the Trades Union Congress General Council, with the "Defence of Freedom and Peace" movement and his engagement to preside at' a meeting in the Albert Hall at which Mr. Churchill, Lord Lytton, and Lady .Violet Bonham-j Carter are to speak; The Albert Hall meeting will be under the banner of the League of Nations Union, to which men of all parties may rally, and the "Defence of Freedom and Peace" is also a movement described as. not a I party but a rallying point for those who desire "to unite Britain, irrespective of politics or creed, in defence of freedom, secured by democratic government and public law; in resistance to all efforts to diminish or destroy this freedom by violence at home or attack from abroad; and in support of this country's international duty to join with others in preserving peace and withstanding armed aggression." Once again the whisper of "a centre party" is being heard.

The executive committee also decided to hold'a series of area conferences with representatives of constituency parties who are insisting on a revision of the constitution of the annual conference in order to secure greater influence for the constituency party delegates. The constituency parties protest against the steam-roller effect of the mass voting of the trade unions.