SOCIALISM ATTACKED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 806, 8 September 1923, Page 3

SOCIALISM ATTACKED.

"THESE MEN ARE OUR ENEMIES AND WILL DESTROY US." DRAMATIC SPEECH BY LORD BIRKENHEAD. "What is the menace of SoeiAlisnl? Is it exaggerated? Is it a chimera?" Lord Birkenhead asked these questions in the House of Lords, when he drew attention to the growing strength of Socialism, and asked the Government whether they proposed to take any steps to modify by legislation the power of the trade unions to make compulsory levies for political purposes. If the Labour Party obtained a mak ority the House of Lords, he said, would completely cease to function. "The existing situation is that trade unions are in a position to compel every individual member to subscribe to their party purposes," said Lord Brikenhead. "No more wicked Act lias been placed on the Statute Book than that which places trade unions above the law. "These men are our enemies. They* challenge and assail everything wo believe, and they will, if they come into power, destroy everything which we conceive to be vital to the maintenance of the country and Empire. "If,the Socialist Party, as the result of the next general election, finds itself in a majority, unless a combination takes place among .the non-Socialist parties, we must have the capital levy and a socialisation of industry. "Are we prepared indefinitely to enable Conservative and Liberal working men to be compelled as a condition of earning their livelihood to finance Socialist candidates ? The existing practice is monstrously unnatural and purely wrong." Viscount Peel, replying for the Government, said it was a question whether if the Labour Party came into power, there would be so much unanimity in the ranks as appeared to be so now they were fighting the Government.