LABOUR GOVERNMENT’S POLICY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19147, 15 April 1924, Page 12

LABOUR GOVERNMENT’S POLICY.

ME MACDONALD’S REPLY' TO CRITICS. DOMINIONS BEING CONSULTED. CAPITAL LEVY HELD OVER. (Fkom Ode Own Corbespondent.i LONDON, February 19. In answering the criticism levelled at hi» policy speech, Mr Ramsay MacDonald mad* several things clear. One waa that hie parhf did not intend to deal with the capital levy. He admitted that no change of such a character could be made until a majority ol the country was in favour of it. " The capital levy,’ he said, “is in exactly the same position as Protection. It could not be enacted in this Parliament. If my right Iron, friend (Mr Baldwin) transfers hie seat from the Opposition side of the House to the Ministerialist side, I assume lie will not try to introduce Protection while this Parliament lasts. Until the National Debt is reduced by honest means —I regard two means as dishonest; repiudiation and inflation—this country will not be free to compete in the markets of the world. So far as this Government is concerned, it would be sheer folly for any lion, member to say the Government proposes to introduce a capital levy.” IMPERIAL PREFERENCE. The question of preference, said the Prim© Minister, would come up when they placed the resolutions of the imperial Conference before the House, aud Ural would be done as speedily as possible. Unemployment proposals were described "as a hash up of previous proposals. “Well, we.are pursuing the policy of continuity.—(Laughter.) Why that laugh? Does any member 1 suppose w© .are going to scrap everything that ‘ has been done, and make . a complete break while devising practical schemes of a new character, and that in the meantime the unemployed should be neglected?” Mr Baldwin asked whether it wore possible to make a statement about the treaty between Kussa ana Italy. Mr MacDonald; In my communication to Russia I have said it is understood that his Majesty's Government will get either ■ the same terms or terms of equivalent value ■ as those granted to any other Power recognis- ■ ing the Soviet. We are doing our best to H make the bargain perfectly fair on bo ■ sides, and I think we are coming to a ■ proper business-like arrangement. I POLICY OF DEFENCE. I On the question of defence Mr MacDonald. ■ said they were taking up the matter where ■ they found it, And in tlie ordinary ■ way the Committee ol imperial Defence wu© ■ exploring the whole problem in a wider way ■ than it had been explored before. Circum- ■ stances allowed them to do it. It was no ■ virtue or merit of their own. If at anj ■ moment in the history of Europe defence can. ■ be considered in a wider way than from the™ military point of view it is just immediately ■ after.a great wan, because no nation wishes ■ to enter upon war again. There is a strong■ moral ana human feeling against any sort !■ ol military embarkments which will uitt- !■ mately result in war conditions. In t© H minds of the masses of the people of all U countries there is a desire for agreement, i H not exactly to make armaments unnecessary, ■ at any rate to enable us serenely to limit H them to economic and political proportions. ■ ■‘The- Government is, therefore, considering ■ the question of defence, not merely from toe ■ point of view of the strength of the Navy, ■ Army, or Air Force—though those questions ■ are under consideration—but from the point ■ of view of civil and of foreign and inter- ■ national policy. We ane co-ordinating ah ■ these things together, and when sometimes ■ some of my friends say or have said suics ■ 1 have started work at the Foreign Office ■ it would help me very much if I had _ thu ■ force or that force behind me, I say: No; ■ at all. You are wonderfully mistaken. ‘ Fo ■ some time to come at any rate, the bargain H in" power of the British Foreign Secretat ■ is °not to depend at all on military force, bu ■ on the reasonableness of the policy wind ■ he ©resents.’ I ani going to try that. : Bu ■ I want to make it perfectly clear whilst-try ■ ing that course we are not going to neglec ■ the other. We are not going to assume th* ■ the problem cf national defence is purel; ■ and solely the other thing.” I Replying to Viscount Curzon regarding n« ■ tional 'defence, the Prime Minister said th ■ habit had now grown up so lustily of con ■ suiting the dominions in . all these thing ■ that the Government were in the closest col ■ tact with them on that and all questions i H which they were concerned. H