TEN YEARS’ POLITICS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 14 January 1928, Page 9

TEN YEARS’ POLITICS

LORD BIRKENHEAD’S PROPHESIES

LABOUR WILL SHED MAD POLICY

A DDRE'S.SI NO a mass meeting under the auspices of the Northwich Divisional Conservative Association at Runcorn recently, Lord Birkenhead said that the Labour Party quite unnecessarily undertook a fatal handicap when they embraced the stale, discredited, and stupid doctrines of .Karl Marx, which almost, the whole world except themselves were .-.abandoning. There had been a great place for a Labour party in this country as an alternative Government; there might still be a great place for it the moment there arose among them a leader' with the courage, the originality, and the force to strike off from the body of that party the shackles in which this ludicrous faith of Socialism was involving them. A sensible Labour party had no need to commit suicide by calling itself Sojcialist. Socialism had been defined [over and over again as the socialisation iof the means of production, distribu1 1i on and exchange. That meant that jit was far better that the Government should control all the means of pro !uetion which was the whole manufacturing enterprise of the country; all the means of distribution (which included every method of transport by which that which was manufactured was made available for its purchaser); and exchange (which meant t h ii,t the whole banking communities of the world wi re to be made party machines). I.f it were not demonstrably a fact it would b ■ in. credible that any men at the preson'i day who were not in danger of being certified could have handicapped thamstlves by unnecessarily exposing themselves to this programme. Analysing the implications of this programme, Lord Birkenhead said that lie had never been able to perceive that the practice of Labour leaders encouraged any particular belief in the claim that all men ought to be paid the same. He was not in the least disputing tiie fact that there were many men in the Labour Party worth many olhnr men in that party. To deny that would ,in- ]

deed, be to close one’s eyes to very obvious facts. “I didn’t criticise and you didn’t, criticise," proceeded the speaker “ when the leader s of the Labour party accepted—and they were undoubtedly right in accepting —salaries 'of £SOOO a year when they became Cabinet. Ministers. If they had refused them they would have been foolish, they would hav been lacking in public spirit (laughter)—and also in private ontcrI prise. (Renewed laughter.) Mr John Burns, an old friend of mine, once said that, no man was worth more than £SOO a. year. No more foolish observation was ever made. Many men are not worth more than £SOO a year; many 'men are only worth the dole. On the I other hand, Mr John Burns was very soon to provide a conspicuous repudiation of his own precipitately expressed opinion, because only 14 months after, wards he found himself worth £SOOO a year. And he was worth £SOOO a year, anil .he took £SOOO a year, and if lie had not. taken £SOOO a year he. would have been guilty of the same error of .judgment from which T have already protected the late Cabinet Ministers.”

WHAT ‘ ‘.SOCIAL ISE '' MEANS.

It was, proceeded Lord Birkenhead, indeed a ha'rd saying, and one difficult t'i> understand, that in order to fit ourselves for competition with rivals who up to the present had not lost their senses—with th ( < exception of that brilliant example of the other policy, Soviet Russia— wo were to take away from th'ose who, in the 'open compe'ition of the world, had asserted t.neir capacity and their individuality, the functions which in so many cases they l;ad carried to a brilliant success, and to give them to the local loaders of the trade unions. “1 suggest that if you socialise our manufactures you mean that a Government department is to take over every .industry. If you don’t mean that you mean nothing. You are talking ludicrous nonsense if you mean less than that. If the Labour Party

floes not moan that let them cease to talk -of the socialisation of manufactures, because it is futile and not very honest ta'lk if they mean less.”

Lord Birkenhead went on to say that he would make a prediction which those who lived, to see the next ten years’ development of our politics would assuredly confirm, and that was that the intelligent leaders of the Labour Party would gradually shed this mad economic, policy, and until they had so shed ir, fugitive, indeed, would be the triumphs they would gain, disastrous the reaction upon the fortunes of this country. 'Lord /.Birkenhead spoke of tlie “complete and hopeless insolvency” which, he said, had resulted in four districts where the Socialist party had acquired control of the municipal government, and added that an old saying ma'do it plain that no community could enjoy a really permanently prosperous life if it depended for a livelihood upon the practice of taking in one another’s washing. But it was even more certain that -no community could succeed permanently, or over a long period of time, which founded its hope of Jiveli hood upon one another’s doles. Nothing but apathy, he added, could lose the Conservative party the control of the great municipalities. j

By refusing representatives to the Russian I nteriiati.ohale and excluding the Communists from trade, union meet, ings in this country, he concluded, though their action had been so long delayed, had. at last taken *t.lie wiser and braver course. Let them get rid of the doctrine of economic insanity which supposed that you could encourage collective national efficiency by discouraging individual efficiency* and they would have made themselves an alternative Government whose reception of power might be received by their countrymen without those deep and fundamental anxieties, which must attend tha't advent as long as that doe. trine was adhered to.