SET PEOPLE FREE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26584, 6 October 1947, Page 5

SET PEOPLE FREE

CONSERVATIVE POLICY TOTALITARIAN TENDENCIES DEPLORED SPEECH BY MR CHURCHILL Rec. 7.30 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 4. Addressing a mass demonstration of the Conservative Party in Brighton, Mr Churchill said the Conservatives had every reason to believe that the Socialist Government was now a substantial minority and was ruling without support against the wishes of the larger part of the nation. It would be most imprudent not to be ready for a general election at any time in 1947 or 1948. Mr Churchill, who was televised to two overflow meetings in other halls, spoke mostly of home affairs, but in a preliminary reference to the Empire, said in the melancholy tale of casting away of the British Empire in India, and the misfortune and slaughter which were falling on the Indian peoples, all the blame could not be thrown on one party The Socialist Government, however, had thrown itself with zeal into the task of destroying Britain’s long built-up splendid structure in the East and brought widespread ruin, misery, and bloodshed upon the Indian masses to an extent no one could measure. New Government Wanted Mr Churchill declared that the Conservative Party would attack the Government by every means in its power in order to achieve the “ first steps to national recovery”—the .departure of the Socialist Government, many of whose inroads into Britain’s liberties wore the aspect of a Nazi, Communist, or Fascist totalitarian State. At home, the imminent economic crisis would not be mastered except by an election of a new House of Commons representing the nation’s strength and wiswere two flagrant untruths in Socialist propaganda, first, that the period between the wars during most of which there was a Conservative majority, was a kind of dark age. K w as. on the contrary, a period marked b/ steady social improvement; second, the Socialist legend was that the Conservative Party was not concerned about employment and would even welcome a certain amount of unemployment as a stimulus to production. . The Socialists spoke with admiration about the White Paper on employment but this was produced under the Churchill Government Lord Moolton was its author, and the Socialists had not added a single current idea. If Socialists praised the White Paper they had not a right to say that the Conservatives had no employment policy. ' , Making No Promises Mr Churchill, turning to the Conservative future policy, said he could not think anything more foolish than that the party without power to act or the machinery of government at its disposal, should commit itself to a detailed programme of executive action. Certainly, while he led the party, it would not attempt to bribe its way into office by promises it knew it could never fulfil, or try to outbid the Socialist Government in its levelling policies. The Industrial Charter, which was the Conservative Party s official policy, showed plainly the broad, democratic view the party took of current affairs. The Conservatives, once the basic minimum standard or life and labour was establisned, proposed to set the people free as quickly as possible from the restrictions now besetting daily life, and above this minimum would be free competition with at liberty to make the best of himself by all the means that honour and the law allowed. The price mechanism would then be allowed to work again according to the principle of supply and demand. Certain basic steps must first be taken. The distortion of finances must be corrected, and wasteful Government expenditure, particu--1 larly abroad, reduced to several hundred million, pounds a year and given in tax reliefs.

The present food shortages werb the result of no failure of nature. « Do not believe the fantastic tales that the modern world with all its science is broke and ruined. Crazy doctrines, clumsy fingers, and the vicious, morbid trends of policy, are manufacturing shortages and misery.” First of all its objectives the party placed the unity of the British Commonwealth. The party was not prepared to barter . away Imperial preferences. Even in his war-time relations with President Roosevelt he always safeguarded the Imperial preference principle, and this never impeded the growth of Anglo-American friendship. There was nothing incompatible in his advocacy of a united Europe unless one were tied to the choice between the two rigid customs unions in the full sense of the word. Canada’s particication _ in Empire preference never stood in the way of her special economic relations with the United States. Neither need the British Empire with a European economic policy conflict with United States policy.