BRITISH LIBERALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21055, 18 June 1930, Page 7

BRITISH LIBERALS

OFFER BY THE LEADER. SUPPORT FOR' GOVERNMENT. WAR ON UNEMPLOYMENT. (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, June 17. (Received June 17, at 8 p.m.) An offer by Mr Lloyd George to the Government of the whole support of the Liberal Party, ensuring a sound, dependabl majority for the emergency measures D( ssary to wage war on unemployment, is contained in an exclusive front page interview by Mr Lloyd George in the Daily Herald. He declares that the problem must be treated as a national emergency. The session for the enactment of emergency measures might require half a dozen pieces of first-class legislation devoted wholly to winning the war against unemployment. United effort on part of the whole nation could save the situation. He would make the duration of Bills five years, which was long enough to cover the period of emergency. Mr Lloyd George opposed subsidies on wheat and cereals, which measure had been tried ii wartime and abandoned because it had proved over-costly. He described Labour’s laud,, coal, mines, and slum clearance programmes as over-' modest. The -Liberals would' give the Government a majority for the more drastic schemes, to be discussed by the small committees round a table, like Cabinet or a directors' meeting. He did not want any position, as he was tired bf office and its cares. He only wanted to do something to help. “ I’m an old man, but I’m not dead yet,” he concluded. COMMENT BY. DAILY HERALD. SUSPICIOUS OF PROPOSALS. LONDON, June 17. (Received June 18, at 1 a.m.) The Daily Herald, editorially commenting on Mr Lloyd George’s proposals, dismissed emphatically any idea of a Liberal-Labour coalition, “ which Labour would not have. Nor is it possible for Labour to avoid viewing Mr Lloyd, George’s new orientation .without a, certain degree of suspicion as the gifts the, gods have showered upon him do not. include the sovereign virtue of consistency. In vaip the interview has been scanned for clear concrete ideas on any of his emergency proposals.”