BRITISH CONSERVATIVES

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1945, Page 6

BRITISH CONSERVATIVES

“STIFF FIGHT” AHEAD

RUGBY, February 17., A warning to brace themselves for a “stiff political fight” was issued to Conservatives to-day by Mr. Ralph Assheton, chairman of the Conservative Party. The things Conservatives believed in were so important and mattered sb vastly to the country that they were worth working and fighting for, he said, and if the Conservatives did not work and fight for them no one else would. The principles of the party did not change, though the policy must be adapted to changing circumstances. Referring to Labour’s policy of n<rtionalisation, he said that, unless they wanted people to be dependent on the State for a living and without the old freedom to choose where and for whom they should work, they must fight that policy. He issued a warning against allowing the power of the State to expand at the expense of the individual through a great bureaucratic machine. “We must make certain that after the war we get back the freedom we have temporarily surrendered and do not allow bureaucracy to strangle and confine our initiative,” he said. When victory was won they must face, the economic realities of a competitive world. To have free employment and to have any sort of tolerable existence they would have to. sell goods in the markets of the world. British industry had had experience of that; the State had not. "I challenge any advocate of nationalisation to produce evidence which will convince an impartial observer that the machinery of the State can be made as flexible as that of a commercial firm, balancing the risks of loss against the chances of profit,” he said. State control would not lower costs or raise output, nor would it change loss into profit. Mr. Assheton concluded with a warning on the subject of war expenditure and extravagance. “Do not let us be so foolish as to imagine expenditure can go on for ever,” he said. “The Treasury has not money of its own. It only gathers money from the pockets of the people. It is not a question of can the Government afford it, but of can the taxpayer afford it?”