PRIME MINISTER CRITICISED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 12 June 1945, Page 5

PRIME MINISTER CRITICISED

LABOUR LEADERS’ SPECHES London, June 9. Mr Churchill’s statements that the people’s savings would be endangered if the Labour Government was returned and that the Socialists would fall back on some form of the Gestapo drew rejoinders from three Labour leaders who spoke to-day. Mr C. R. Attlee said: % “It is remarkable and insulting that the baser sort of our opponents have resorted to playing on the people’s fears. There is a whispering campaign by little, mean-minded people, who creep around old women and little children telling them the ‘wicked Socialists’ will take up their savings. It is a dirty, cruel thing to make such poor people anxious and worried.” Mr Ernest Bevin declared that Labour wanted to encourage savings in the national pool to help reconstruct the country. “Our whole life has been built up on our own pennies.” Mr Bevin added. It was not a question of voting for the man who won the war, because Mr Churchill himself told him. the other day: “After all, I won’t be able to go on for more than a year or two.” “OLD WORLD PREJUDICES Mr Herbert Morrison said Mr Churchill suffered from old-world prejudices, which he manifested in silly talk about the Gestapo, in Spite of the fact that there were no signs of such institutions under the Labour Governments of Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia. “But this same Winston Churchill who talks nonsense about Labour Gestapos,” added Mr Morrison, ‘found it in his heart a few years ago to be most complimentary about the Mussolini and Franco regimes.” (Earlier message on Page 3.)