FREEDOM FOR WORKERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 276, 26 October 1925, Page 8

FREEDOM FOR WORKERS.

PLEA BY CONSERVATIVES

HINT TO THE GOVERNMENT. LONDON. Oct. 9. “Mr Baldwin may preach industrial peace, hut it will bo the peace of the grave, in which will lie the Conservative Party and the British Empire, if the party does not amend the Trade Union Act,” said Mr F. A. Macquisten, K.C., M.P., at the Conservative Conference at Brighton. “The Government must give the working, man his political freedom, enabling a non-Laborite to contribute a levy to his own party and also restore his economic and industrial liberty.

“Trades unions now are' above the law, resulting in the creation of lawless bodies, frocing strikes the men do not desire. Conservative workmen should bo given a chance of asserting themselves.”

Mr Roberts, a miner, declared that, although he was a Conservative, he was forced to join the Miners’ Federation. “I have fought four elections against tho Labour Party,” ho said, “yet my money has been used to finance my opponents. It is rank tyranny.” Another delegate denounced Labour victimisation as the result of a Conservative asserting his right to subscribe to his own party, and thereby losing his job. Sir William Bull, M.P., urged tho reform of the Local Government Act, which he declared had become “mossgrown—or, rather, Moscow-grown.” Mr Raikes, a miner, declared that the miners did not want nationalisation of coal. They knew too much of racing to back “a horse which Karl Marx had sired and which lost backers money whenever it ran, whether in Australia or in Germany.” “Mr Baldwin claims that his Cabinet must he judged by results, but,” says the Times in a leading article, “the public will only judge by results if the results are brought to its notice. Mr Baldwin rightly deprecated the notion that the affairs of the Empire can be ‘run on lieadlines,’ hut at a time when tho country is being subjected to a steady drip of poisonous, unscrupulous and skilful propaganda it is unwise for the best Governments to hide their light under a bushel. Mr Baldwin is not a good stage manager, and perhaps despises the art of stage management, but to win and retain the support of democracy, modest publications are indispensable. His speech breaks a silence, unduly prolonged, and it is hoped that his colleagues will follow the excellent lead he has given,”