LIBERAL MINISTERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 256, 28 September 1932, Page 7

LIBERAL MINISTERS

RESIGNATIONS EXPECTED. UN t ReR-SECRETARIES ALSO TO RETIRE. MEETING OF CABINET TO-DAY. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received September 28, 11.17 a.m. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 27. The first fully attended meeting of Cabinet since the House of Commons adjourned will take place to-morrow, and there is now little doubt that the Liberal Ministers, Sir Herbert Samuel and Sir Archibald Sinclair will take this opportunity of announcing their retirement.

It is generally anticipated that Lord Snowden will adopt a similar course and that the under-secretaries associated with Sir Herbert Samuel and the Liberal Party will also retire, and that the group will support the Government in Parliament on all matters except the tariff question.

NATIONAL CHARACTER OF GOVERNMENT. WILL BE PRESERVED. Received September 28, 11.40 a.m. LONDON, Sept, 27. There is no longer any doubt that Lord Snowden, Sir Herbert Samuel, Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Marquess of Lothian, Sir Robert Hamilton, Mr Isaac Foot, Mr H. Graham White, Mr W. R. Rea, Major Mackenzie-Wood, and Mr Harcourt Johnstone will be resigning to-morrow. It is believed that their resignations have been in the hands of Mr Ramsay MacDonald for a week since when every effort has been made to persuade them to remain in the Cabinet, at any rate until after the World Economic Conference.

Mr MacDonald lias been arguing that the existing agrement to differ covers all the Ottawa decisions. If the last minute pressure upon the Liberals to remain fails, Mr MacDonald intends to fill their places in a manner which will preserve the national character of the Government. There is not any likelihood of Sir John Simon and Mr Walter Runciman retiring. It is expected that most of the seals of office will be exchanged by Friday when the King receives the outgoing and.incoming Ministers. There was much activity throughout the day at Downing Street where Mr MacDonald and Mr Baldwin were receiving many visitors. The Daily Telegraph’s l political correspondent expresses the opinion that Mr MacDonald will not automatically appoint nine Liberals to replace the retiring Cabinet members, nor will he allocate all the vacancies to Conservatives, but will fill the offices with the best men available without strict adherence to party labels. CHANGES EXPECTED. LONDON, Sept. 27. Several , newspapers connect the King’s early return to London from Scotland with extensive Cabinet changes, which they say are to be announced during the week-end. The Daily Herald says that the Prime Minister is reconstructing the entire Cabinet, and that Sir John Simon is likely to be removed from the Foreign Office, “where he has given universal dissatisfaction except to the French.”

Elsewhere it is suggested that Sir John Simon and his followers will quit voluntarily if the Samuelites go with a view to a reunion of the Liberal Party, but will support the Government during the national emergency in everything except fiscal policy.

RETURN OF LIBERALISM

MR LLOYD GEORGE’S FORECAST,

Air Lloyd George spoke at the annual garden party of the Home Counties Young Liberal Federation at his house in Addison Road, Kensington, London, recently. There had lieen a reactionary movement throughout the world, he said. It was slower to reach England, and it might be that it woidd be later in spending its force, but that it would spend its force he had no doubt. This reaction had rooted out free trade, under which Britain had prospered beyond any of its fellows in Europe, and had sown the tares of protection. In other directions reaction was seen under the name of economy. Social services were cut down; research was cut down. The great movement for settling the population on the land was arrested, education was arrested; and he was told we were going to get more of it. He was glad to see that in the Continent of Europe there were certain signs of the return of the tide of Liberalism. We heard it faintly lapping at the last election on the shores of France. How strong the current was there we should see. The very remarkable movement among three countries of Northern Europe for lowering tariffs was a beginning. There was a change coming. He was certain that' the heart and the intelligence of Britain was Liberal to the core, and the future of Britain depended on Liberalism reasserting itself in some shape or other, in some organisation or other, in the near future.