BRITAIN’S RECOVERY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 30 November 1945, Page 5

BRITAIN’S RECOVERY

HAMPERED BY LABOUR PARTY MR CHURCHILL'S ACCUSATION London, Nov. 28. “The vote at the General Elections was one of the greatest disasters that has smitten this country in its entire history,” said Mr Churchill, leader of the Conservative Party, in a speech to the party’s general conference. He add- 1 ed: “There is no reason why we should not lead our country out of this foolish lapse and error just as we led the country through the great world struggle. There are dangers which lie about us on every side and which if not overcome will press down the British nation to standards we have never contemplated and rob us of our place in the world and also of that reasonable prosperity and freedom of all classes on which we have built the British way of life. “So long as you maintain me in the present position I shall call on every man and woman to do their utmost to revive the powerful heartbeat of the nation and make headway against the morbid reactionary Socialists who led the people so far astray that they got a stranglehold on Britain.” Mr Churchill accused Labour of hampering and delaying the recovery of Britain for their own party ends. He claimed that the transition from war to peace in the United States was succeeding enormously. Britain would maintain and develop her standard of living by her own exertions without seeking the charity of other nations. From every quarter he hear® how enterprise was divided and fettered, queues and faces longer, and forms and officials more plentiful. Mr Churchill criticised in detail the Government policy of demobilisation and housing and uncertainty in nationalisation plans. END OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE “Private enterprise is to be sacrificed in a heavy-footed State with an overspreading bureaucracy. We are told everything must be concentrated on exports, but whoever outside an infant school or lunatic asylum would say that exports should not be the over-spilling of successful home trade.” After referring to the President of the Board of Trade, Sir Stafford Cripps, as “a great advocate of strength through misery,” Mr Churchill added: “He tried this theme on the Government in 1942 and I did not like it. I prefer strength through victory. The Socialist Government is making every effort to diminish and destroy the country’s purchasing power. It assures us that spending must be damped down to avoid dangers of inflation, but surely the remedy is in abundance. Fill the shops with what the public wants. Get the workers from the forces. Get the factories moving “and then purchasing power will be a blessing. “Unless this Government can be compelled by public opinion and Parliamentary pressure to change its plans we shall be left far behind in the world markets on which we depend for half our food and so much raw material. I foresee with sorrow, but without fear, that in a few weeks we shall have to come to fundamental quarrels. “It seems impossible to escape the fact that events are moving towards the issue—people versus Socialists. On the one hand there will be the spirit of our people—organised and unorganised—the ancient glorious British people who have carried our names so high and our arms so far. On the other hand there will be Socialist doctrinaires with all their persuasive propaganda and bitter class hatreds, with their love of tyrannisation, party machinery, hordes of officials and bureaucracy.”