EMPIRE DEVELOPMENT

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11686, 26 November 1923, Page 12

EMPIRE DEVELOPMENT

COLONEL JACEKSON’S NO FEAR OF THE SOCIALISTS. Colonel the Ron. F. S.. Jackson, M.P. ? addressing a women’s political meeting (Unionists) in Yorkshire recently, said that, nndeir the leadership of Mr Stanley Baldwin, they were gaining the confidence of all the stable elements in the country. The question of unemployment at home was hound up in the Enropean situation. In the meantime, it was also related to the question of Empire development, in which he saw some solution of the trouble. The Empire was in a position to supply all we needed, and he saw no reason why, if the matter were properly handled, the Empire should not be self-supporting. ■With the enormous developments in transport no part of the Empire was so remote as formerly, and it should ■be run for the benefit of those in it. He deprecated the opposition of the Socialist Party to the 'emigration proposals, which he thought were calculated to develop the Empire on right lines and with the right kind of citizens in our distant possessions. By properly developing the Empire wb should promote trade at home. Surely the right policy to adopt was to encourage closer commercial relations with the self-governing lands of the Empire, and in this way make up for the lost Continental markets, and so absorb the masses of unemployed workers. He emphasised that our system of private enterprise had made ns a great nation, and he challenged the assertions of the Socialist Party that the workers would be better off if ,a Socialist system were substituted for the capitalistic regime under which we had achieved our great position. There need be no fear in accepting the Socialist challenge, for there never was a time when the Conservative Party should be more united in maintaining the existing order and insisting on its benefits. Socialism would mean the extension of bureaucratic control to all departments of life and industry, and if the issue were fairly put to the country he had no fear of the result. Socialist practice did not square with their professions. They ■were great advocates of free speech, yet their treatment of the Conservative candidate at the Central Leeds by-election was a denial of their professions. The Conservative Party was the only effective bulwark against Socialism. (Applause.) If the experiment were to be made in Socialism, let it he made elsewhere, so that we could see the results and profit by them. He predicted that, judging by the experience of Australia and Swe-

den, where the railways had been nationalised and State control had proved a failure, wo should not care to venture on the experiment. (Applause.) Colonel Jackson also referred to agricultural questions, and sajd the Government had given an earnest of its desire to help agriculture in the Agriculture Rates Act, which was an act of justice to that industry, and in no sense preferential treatment. It was impossible to have general prosperity without a prosperous agriculture, and it was in the interests of the Whole country that they should do all they could to make agriculture prosperous. (Applause.)