SOCIALISTS AND SANCTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22709, 23 October 1935, Page 15

SOCIALISTS AND SANCTIONS

LORD PONSONBY'S RESIGNATION DIFFERENCES OF OPINION (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON", September 21. As the result of the attitude of the National Executive of the Labour Party towards sanctions and the League of Nations, Lord Ponsonby has decided to resign the leadership of the Labour Party in the House of Lords. He explains, in a letter to Mr Lansbury, the leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, that he has been strongly eonfirmed in the view which he has held during the last 30 years that peace can never be secured by force of arms. • Mr Lansbury holds the same view, which he expressed in a statement to the press after the attitude of the Labour Party to sanctions had been declared. He then indicated his willingness to resign the leadership and make way for someone who could express the views of the party on this subject with conviction. In a recent letter to The Times, Lord Ponsonby declared that nothing would be more clumsy and ill-advised than for Great Britain precipitately, and before the conditional circumstances had arisen, to take the lead in proposing eventual sanctions. The methods of ordinary, unspectacular diplomacy were not yet exhausted. He added: "If we fail and Mussolini is determined on running his country for the sake of a cheap triumph over ill-armed African tribes, neither the League nor any combination of nations can stop him without a disastrous extension of the area of war. Dictators are disturbing in their madness. But although very much here to-day, fortunately, more especially for their own countries, they will be gone to-morrow. So in the meanwhile let us keep our heads, avoid hysteria, look far enough ahead, and prevent at all costs the creation of far more serious international dissensions which may lead to a European conflagration." SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS. Sir Stafford Cripps, M.P., is another Socialist who disapproves of sanctions. He expressed his disapproval at the Labour conference at Margate, and now he, too, has decided that he must withdraw a little to the background. _ He has, therefore, resigned from the National Executive of the Labour Party and has withdrawn his candidature for that committee, which would, in the ordinary course, be voted on at the forthcoming Brighton conference. In his letter to the secretary of the party, Sir Stafford Cripps says: "It is not necessary, I am sure, for mc to say that this act of mine will not diminish in the least my eagerness to help the party to gain power, because I am as convinced as ever I was that the solo political party which offers any hope to the British workers is the Labour Party." MEETING OF EXECUTIVE. At a meeting, held this week, the executive accepted Sir Stafford Cripps's resignation. It was felt that his resignation and the resignation of Lord Ponsonby from the leadership of the Labour Party in the House of Lords might make Mr Lansbury's position as leader of the party exceedingly difficult, in view of Mr Lansbury's uncompromising opposition to the application by the League of Nations of sanctions that might involve the risk of war. The Labour Party, as Sir Stafford Cripps points out in his letter, will have to express itself upon this issue at the conference at Brighton next month, and it is felt that its decision must affect Mr Lansbury's position. On the other hand, it was recognised by the executive that there is still a possibility that the situation may not reach a stage which will make his position acute.