Politicans Squabble While Youth Fights

Northern Advocate, 28 June 1943, Page 3

Politicans Squabble While Youth Fights

(80. W., 1 p.m.) RUGBY, June 27. “I believe that if we were to come out of this great war, if we were to break the electoral truce ourselves and proceed deliberately, with almost malice aforethought, to break up the political unity of the country a young man in the Eighth Army would want to know why politicians were squabbling at home while he was doing the fighting,” the Home Secretary (Mr. Morrison) said when addressing a London Labour Party meeting. Mr. Morrison said that while Labour could not cut 'the “dash” they would like in the Coalition Government they were not prevented from expressing their minds or from crusading and trying to get the country to see the troubles that were coming at the end of the war if steps were not taken to circumvent them. He appealed to Labour to devote much more time to securing' transformation of an imperfect social order into a better social order. There was need for more public ownership and public control of production but control must be constructive and helpful, not merely bureaucratic. In our financial policy after the war there must be no financial irresponsibility. We must draw up a scheme of priorities to decide how to spend our money, then spend it fruitfully without waste. Sane Expansion The financial plan must be expansive not restrictive. There must be no hide-bound acceptance of the old idea that finance must dominate production. There must not be sharp changes in the value cf money, no sharp * inflation or manipulation of the people’s savings. The war had shown what could be done under extraordinary conditions and if it was possible to pursue extreme expansionist policies in war we could certainly pursue moderate expansionist policies in peace. What had happened was that the Government had made the banking and financial system the servant not the master as had been in 1931. “Labour favours expansionist policies and proclaims that fact,” Mr. Morrison concluded, “but with the example cf war-time finance before it, Labour knows very well how to pursue expansionist policies ' while keeping the pound steady.”