LIBERAL PARTY FUNDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20320, 31 January 1928, Page 13

LIBERAL PARTY FUNDS.

MR LLOYD GEORGE ANSWERS

CRITICS

DENIAL OF PERSONAL BENEFIT.

ORIGIN OF THE FUND,

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON. December 14.

Mr Lloyd George has at last broken silence with regard to what is known as the Lloyd George Fund, which has served for some years as a very live subject for journalistic speculation. The following .statement, signed by Mr Lloyd George, was issued to the press:— Having regard to recent speeches delivered by Ministers which indicate a common purpose to create prejudice against the Liberal Party in connection with what is known as the Lloyd George Fund, I wish to make the following statement :

The National Liberal Political Fund was collected by the Whips of that party in exactly the same way ns every other political fund. Whig and Tory, Liberal and Conservative, for well over a century. If this statement is challenged i am ready to substantiate it.

It is not always realised that during the Coalition Government the Conservative Party continued to maintain its own fund, and that when the Coalition was ended it retained whatever amount's were ccfleeted by its Whips during that period. As to the Honours Lists during my Premiership, they were prepared by the Chief Whips in the usual way. They wore then submitted to the joint Leaders of the Coalition, myself and Mr Bonar Law, and afterwards Mr Austen Chamberlain. who succeeded him. Wo sat together at a joint meeting to consider and settle those lists. Claims were urged purely on public grounds. For my own.part, I had no information as to who amongst the persons put fotward had or had not subscribed towards the party funds. It is of interest to recall a speech delivered by Mr Austen Chamberlain in the House of Commons during the debate on the Honours Lists on the 17th of July, 1922, in the course of which he said; “NOT ONE PENNY HANDLED BY ME.” “ I would never recommend for an honour a man whom I did not .think by Ids personal and his public conduct was fitted to receive that honour, and even if I were privy to the fact that he had made a contribution to the funds of the party to which I belong that would he to my mind an additional claim if I knew, ami I say so frankly, and I believe that would bo the case with every^ Prime Minister or Leader of a party wno has preceded the present Prime Minister or myself.” In an earlier debate Mr Boaar Law spoke in very much the same sense. “ Not one penny of the fund has ever been handled by mo. During the existence of the National Liberal Party up to and until after the general election of 1023. it was administered by. the Whips of the party without any reference to me. When the party was then dissolved its administration passed to « committee on which were three cx-M hips —namely. The Plight Hon. C. A. M Curdy, K.C. Sir William Edge. J.P.. and Major Gwilym Lloyd George, who ar“ still members of the Fund Committee. 1 was never even consulted except on large questions of policy. “ Most of the fund, the amount of which have boon fantastically exaggerated, is derived from the considerable appreciation of certain newspaper properties, in which almost a!l of it until recently was invested. The fact that these papers should have prospered has naturally excited the envy of journals which are fioundcriug helplessly in tlu mud. The only part I have played in the administration of the fund has been confined to the close attention I gave after I loft office to the management and direction of those papers and to their subsequent sale. As soon as the sale of these properties vra-s finally completed two -iT Sircc (Hstuttfi ft s'? ffis pn?e m? werc

over to the account of a new and enlarged committee, of winch Lord i3t. Davids is the chairman, and. in addition tn the three ex-Whips already mentioned, tthc following arc members: —

Mainr general Sir Robert Hutchison, K.C.M.G., CB.. D.S 0.. M.P. (Ciiie- Whip of the Liber 1 Parly), and Sir Charles C. Barrie. K.B.L. APPLICATION OF THE FUND.

Ti e whole fund is being administered by that committee. The committee will have exactly the same powers ns the administrators of any similar fund and exactly the same degree of publicity will be accorded to its transactions. Up to the present the fund has been devoted to ;—- (a) Contributing to the costs _of the numerous general elections fought since the war up to and including the last. (It is impossible for men of small or of moderate means to bear the heavy expenses of a parliamentary cand'datnie, and the party organisations in the constituencies are not always able to provide the sums needed for the election expenses. Headquarter funds are therefore indispensable unless only rich men are to oe chosen as candidates. A number of Conservative candidates are assisted at every election in exactly the same way.) (b) Searching inquiries into the conditions of the coal industry and of agriculture here -and abroad.

(<•) a thorough examination of the industrial conditions in this country and abroad. td) A campaign for conveying to the electorate the results of these careful and systematic investigations on problems vital to the life of the nation. (e) The expenses of maintaining a bureau for inquiring into the grievances of exservice men and otheis who have written to me ever since I left office by the scores of thousands.

It is proposed that the remainder of the fund should be utilised for similar objects. Had it not been for the calumny insidiously and privately spread br men and women of the baser sort, I would not nave thought it necessary to add the assurance, which I do unequivocally, that not a perm? of this fund have I ever touched for my private use. Since T left office I have wm-ked ha-d as a journalist to earn my livelihood; I am pleased to say with some success. My articles have appeared in almost every great country in the world, and my em-lu-ments from'this source during these four years have been much greater than the aggre'rate of my salanes during 17 years of office. This statement would have b”en an unwarrantable boast on my part had it not been rendered necessary bv the cowardly slander privately circulated as to my usa of the party funds. D. Lloyd G gouge. December 2, 1927. ALLEGED INCONSISTENCIES. The Morning Post has several pertinent comments to make regarding Mr Lloyd George’s statement. The political correspondent writes: — “ To-day Mr Lloyd George says ‘ not one penny of the fund has ever been bandied by me ’ ; vet alt through the negothtions with .Sir Herbert Samuel and the federation be spoke of himself as having, the control of the fund. ‘I am prenared, said he (the words weie quoted by Sir Charles Hobbouse). ‘ to put at the ebs- * posal of the Administrative Committee ’ —and again, ‘ I make no conditions, absolutely none.’ Then as to the Daily Chronicle shares which were sold la-v Julv—at a time when according to the Liberal Leader, the fund was wholly administered by the ‘ committee ’—the legal conhacts, as the Morning Post has pointed out, disclosed that Mr Lloyd George was the sole vendor."