BRITAIN’S POLITICAL UNITY

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1933, Page 7

BRITAIN’S POLITICAL UNITY

SPEECHES BY “BIG THREE”

FORMER PARTY ISSUES DEAD

[BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.]

RUGBY, November 6.

Parliament will re-assemblo tomorrow. The present session will terminate next week. The new session will be opened by the King on November 21.

Save for question, time, the whole of to-morrow’s proceedings in the Commons will be occupied by a discussion on disarmament. Mr Henderson will take his seat for the first time since he was returned to Parliament, but it is not yet known whether he will contribute to the debate. The Labour Party will hear the Foreign Secretary’s statement before deciding whether to put forward a vote of censure to ensure further discussion on the disarmament question. 4 Cabinet is meeting this afternoon, when it is expected that reports from Sir Leith Ross and Sir Ronald Lindsay upon the Washington Debt Conversations will be considered. Sir Leith Ross is leaving Washington on Wednesday. Mr MacDonald, Mr Baldwin and Sir J. Simon were guests at at luncheon given by the National Labour Committee. Each spoke of the value to the country of the National Government in overcoming the crisis which led to its formation, and' in tackling the difficulties which still had to be overcome.

The Prime Minister said that three of them, separated in political ideals, were united in their objects, and formed a combination which not one of them would break, so long as there was the national need for its continuance. He believed that since the National Government was formed two years ago; it had been the greatest steadying force in the whole world.

Mr Baldwin said' that Britain was tn an incomparably better position than she was two years ago, but there was much still to be done, both nationally and internationally, which required that they should continue to maintain the closest collaboration. Above all, they had to make people realise the real need for the preservation of Democracy in Britain. The National Government, he maintained, were the guardians of real social democracy. Venturing on prophecy, Mr Baldwin said that in whatever form the next Election cam<|*, un<ju,estidnably the great issue will be “Are we going to tread in the path of constitutional democracy, or are we going to scrap it?” There could be only one answer to the question. If all who believed in constitutional democracy stood' together, and fought,out the issue. Sir J. Simon declared that the old controversies that divided the parties, were dead, because each party made its contribution to what was now a common national possession. “I was brought up in the strictest school of Liberalism, and I claim that the contribution of Liberalism in the last generation was immense and beneficial.”

Referring to the old free trade v. protection controversies, Sir J. Simon said that both sides now realised that in this complicated modern, world there was no single and simple formula which would get them through their troubles. Past Party controversies were dead. He k said, “Let the dead bury their dead.” There was a great work to be done, but it would only be done if we work together.”