Socialists Seek Totalitarian Powers In Britain

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 August 1947, Page 6

Socialists Seek Totalitarian Powers In Britain

LONDON, August 9. ' Cdihmentihg on. yesterday’s debate in the House of Commons on the new Supplies and Services Bill,. The Times, in a leading article, says: “The Lord President of the Council (Mr Morrison) failed to discharge either part of his double task, which was to show, first, that a bill to confer emergency powers upon the Government was iiecessary, and second, that this bill was limited to its rightful purpose. “The powers that the Government can already exercise by regulation and order over the life and livelihood of every subject are enormous. Nobody suspects Mr Morrison or, for that matter, Mr Attlee and the Cabinet generally, of plotting to carry out a social revolution under the cover of emergency powers: The ’new powers asked for are nevertheless, totalitarian and the objection to placing them on the Statute Book is not met merely by the observation that the men who ask for them are known not to be of a totalitarian mind.

“The right way for the Government to dissociate themselves from the doctrine of revolution by an administrative order is to conform to the wholesome tradition that those who ask for abnormal powers shall first tell Parliament exactly what they propose to do with them, and second, ask for only so much special authority as is necessary for the end in view. “Government speakers evaded every attempt of the Opposition to obtain a definition of their plans, and asked instead for plenary authority to proceed at their own will. There is no dispute that the dangerous condition Of the country requires that the Government should be invested with far-reaching authority to direct all its resources, human and material, but it should be possible to secure the acceptance of a special discipline in time of emergency without the assumption of a potential dictatorship.”