BRITAIN’S WORKLESS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 184, 5 July 1929, Page 7

BRITAIN’S WORKLESS

POLICY OF GOVERNMENT. CONSERVATIVES RELIEVED. EAGER DISCUSSION IN THE LOBBIES. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) LONDON, July 3. The unemployment proposals outlined in the House of Commons by Mr J. H. Thomas, Lord Privy Seal, met with more praise from tne Conservative and Liberal quarters than from the Minister’s own ranks. Indeed, throughout the speech, there was an ominous silence in the Labour benches. The disappointment could almost be felt.

On the , other hand, the Conservatives were obviously relieved. Mr Winston Churchill, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, revealed the real opinion when he expressed the view that only a limited amount of credit was available. “If diverted in one direction, you are likely to make new unemployment in another,” he stated. Mr Churchill stated during the debate that he looked forward to hearing Mr P. Snowdon, Chancellor of the Exchequer, defend the new reparations settlement. If he could persuade the French to pay more and the Americans to take less, Mr Snowden would receive congratulations, buff it would be odd if Mr Snowden’s first important act was to defend a European settlement leaving Britain worse off than when Mr Snowden described the position as scandalous. Mr Churchill reiterated Mr Baldwin s demand that the Government provide a week in January or February to debate a confidence motion.

If the Government repealed the McKenna duties it would be from a political, not a financial, motive. It would be extremely wanton and cruel to make the workers in important industries a mere pawn to party politics. Mr Churchill warned the Government that the moment it attempted to put into practice the fundamental vices and fallacies on which the Labour Party was built up it would be swept from office.

“A GOOD DEAL OF CONFUSION.” Mr Lloyd George stated that there was a good deal of confusion about the actual unemployment proposals. If the Liberals were satisfied that the Government was in earnest in its endeavour to overcome electoral wrongs the Liberals must assist it to overcome the innumerable Parliamentary difficulties with which it was confronted. But if they found that the Government was trifling with the subject merely to gain time until it suited it to go to the country again under the old conditions suspicion would inevitably be engendered, which would be fatal to the usefulness of the Government. The Government’s policy with the mines was the same as he offered in 1919, which Labour and trades unionists then rejected. Mr Lloyd George warned Mr MacDonald that there was a danger of wounding susceptibilities and/ arousing suspicions by entering alone into a conference with America. Nevertheless, President- Hoover was not a man to enter a conference without a firm determination to make a success of it. Mr Thomas’s road proposals were like a blurred copy of the Liberal book on the subject. The debate was adjourned. Subsequently in the lobbies members eagerly discussed Mr ChurchilJ’s reference to a confidence motion in January, also his friendly attitude to the Liberals. Some interpreted the speech as an invitation to unite against the Socialist forces.

All were agreed that the Government policy will be sharply reviewed six months hence in the light of events.