POST-WAR BRITAIN

Grey River Argus, 1 March 1945, Page 6

POST-WAR BRITAIN

LONDON. Feb. 2'4. Mr Attlee, in a speech at Bradford, said: “The Labour Party wm not go to the election with a demand that everything should be nationalised.’’ The Party would go forward with a programme wherein nationalisation of certain basic services took the proper place as an instrument for lhe buildmg of the kind of Britain they wanted to see. “We of the Labour Party are not Covers of control for its own sake, but we know that for the sake of freedom of the individual, there must be a degree of control, if we seek at once to throw off all war controls we shan’t be acting wisely. The elections in 1918 were a fraud on the electors, won on the catch cries, ‘Homes for Heroes,’ ‘Hang the Kaiser’ and ‘Make the Germans Fay.’ We will not want anything of that sort this time. I do not want to promise our people that the immediate period after the defeat of Germany is going to be an easy time when people can relax.” The opinion that Britain must approach the Relaxation of war controls with the greatest caution was expressed during to-day’s debates on economic relations at the British Commonwealth Relations Conference. Speakers said that there would have to be priorities in rebuilding the industrial life of various countries, which means that the direction and course of trade would for some time in a large measure be controlled.’

It was considered possible that (here might be what is described as an improved “Ottawa” agreement in the form of relaxations of inter-com-monwealth barriers. Australia and other Dominions expressed doubts about the efficacy of the Ottawa agreement and questioned how it would fit into the new world understanding on economic matters A fourfold programme for world prosperity suggested by Australia was first a higher standard of livin" in low love, areas with the object of expanding world trade; second the abolition of tariffs in highly industrialised areas; third, international measures for the . stabilisation §f prices; and fourth, control of the production and distribution of raw materials. Austialia s view was that if these international conditions\ve?e

would be unnecessary.