CRITICAL LABOUR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22713, 28 October 1935, Page 8

CRITICAL LABOUR

INDICTMENT OF GOVERNMENT FOREIGN POLICY ATTACKED COMPREHENSIVE INTERNAL PROGRAMME (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, October 26. The Labour Party’s election manifesto deplores the attempt to exploit a grave international crisis for partisan ends and lengthily catalogues allegations against the Government, including that of giving lavish doles to industry, but failing constructively to improve the people’s lot; and imposing new Durdens by increased food taxes and restriction of supplies. It declares- that, the Government is responsible for the international situation because it did not attempt to check Japanese aggression, thereby seriously discrediting the League. It also wrecked the Disarmament Conference and helped to re-Start the armaments race. It failed to make Signor Mussolini understand that if he broke the peace Great Britain would join in upholding the League’s authority. The Government, it is alleged, was over-late and half-hearted in supporting the Covenant, and, moreover, while giving lip service to the League, it was planning a vast and expensive rearmament. The manifesto adds that the Government endangers world peace and Britain’s security. The manifesto demands a reversal of the suicidal foreign policy arfd seeks whole-hearted co-operation with the League and speedy action to end the Abyssinian war, followed by the immediate resumption of negotiations for allround disarmament. It promises efficiently to maintain the defence forces necessary and consistent with membership of the League, believing that the best defence is not huge competitive armaments but collective security and a general reduction of armaments. The Labour Party will propose the complete abolition of national air forces and the creation of an international air police force, the abolition of private trading in the manufacture of armaments, and it will seek international cooperation on economic and industrial questions with a view to increasing trade and raising standards of living throughout the world. '’. " ' The Labour Party’s Home programme includes the public ownership of banks, coal, transport, electricity, iron, steel, cotton, and land, the reorganisation of agriculture, reasonable hours, and: conditions of employment for all workers, reform of the Trades Disputes Act, and repeal of the Co-operative Societies Act. It aims at national planning to relieve distressed areas; the removal of the means test, the reabsorption of unemployed by national development schemes; reform in education by raising the school-leaving age; the development of health services, especially in respect to maternal mortality; increases in the oldage pensions and lowering the age for the receipt of such pensions, and also provides for the. abolition of the House of Lords and an improvement on procedure in order to “promote Socialism at Home and peace abroad.”