THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Friday, March 31, 1944. MR CHURCHILL’S CHALLENGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25499, 31 March 1944, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Friday, March 31, 1944. MR CHURCHILL’S CHALLENGE

Mr Kenneth Lindsay, a National Labour member of the House of Commons and a former Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, recently concluded a newspaper article on the new assertiveness of parliamentary / opinion, reflecting the inter-action of domestic and foreign policy, in these terms: The country and the House of Commons —and opinion in the Services—seek national unity at a very different point in the political compass from three years ago. It is not too late yet to recapture the sense of urgency and genuine cooperation which alone can provide a Solid basis for unity. Let diehards on either extreme pursue their own way, but the. Government itself must make decisions which accord with the progressive mood of the nation. This is the challenge, friendly but firm, of Parliament to the Executive; it must be met. It is being met, in the case of the defeat suffered by the Government in the writing into the Education Bill of an amendment insisting, against policy, that there should be . no inequality between women and men teachers solely on the ground of sex, by what seems at first sight to be a peculiar show .of intransigence on the part of the Prime Minister. The Government, as was re-emphasised by Mr Churchill in his broadcast this week, sets great store by the new education policy outlined in the Bill. In respect of its proposals for the raising of the school-leaving age, for the facilitation of religious instruction in schools, for compulsory part-time education up to the age of eighteen years and for adult and technical instruction, for a wide extension of existing health and medical services, and for radical changes in the administrative system which will increase the powers of local authorities, the measure is rightly ranked as of the highest importance. Nor did the Government show itself unwilling to take advantage of the informed public discussion which, arising out of the publication of the White Paper on education policy, preceded the drafting of the Bill. It is . proper to'‘recognise, nevertheless, before a judgment is formed on the attitude of the Government on the present crisis, that the amendment, if allowed to remain, would certainly have repercussions throughout the whole of the State services. The principle of equal pay for equal work, as has been swiftly pointed out, must extend beyond educational matters, and so may become not a matter of principle alone, but one of expediency or actual practicability. If, moreover, the vote is rightly interpreted as a reflection of the mood of the Commons and the country “against

what is regarded as the laggard pace of the Government in its reconstruction programme,” the stand taken by the Prime Minister at least becomes intelligible. The Government has not escaped criticism in the past year because of its alleged dilatoriness or lack of imagination in planning for and actively anticipating the needs of the immediate future. And Mr Churchill has himself shown an increasing sensitiveness to attacks launched on those grounds, as'witness the asperity of his contributions to recent by-election discussions and his hot condemnation this week of those who “ thought fit at the present time of hard effort and anxiety to belabour the Government with criticism.” > It should serve to clear the air’if the House is faced, on the occasion of the Government’s first direct reverse on a question of policy, with the need to pronounce again on the wider question of confidence. Only the question of method remains in doubt. Members who were wholly sincere in supporting the amendment moved from the Conservative benches by Mrs Cazalet Keir—reflecting, in their view, the “ progressive ” mood of the House and nation —would be just as sincere and whole-hearted in reaffirming their general confidence in the Administration and in Mr Churchill as its leader. But Mr Churchill will apparently not be satisfied to test the feeling of the House on an issue divorced from the specific question of policy raised by the amendment, although he might have been expected to take some account of the fact that the amendment went through when the House was lacking something like twothirds of its members. . In view of the strong objection to the amendment raised at the time by the Minister in charge of the Bill, it is questionable whether it would have had a majority in a full house. . As matters stand Mr Churchill appears to be demanding a unified vote on a party question, and he may succeed in irritating a considerable section of the House by compelling members to go to the lobbies tailing principle behind party or personal loyalty. There is, in the special circumstances of the Government’s constitution, and the present pressing need for tolerance as well as unity of outlook, a good deal of justification for Dr Edith Summerskill’s impatient objection that Mr Churchill is making a wrong approach to the House by appearing to insist that if anything unpalatable to the Government is carried it must be overruled. •