ANTI-SOCIALIST FRONT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27383, 8 May 1950, Page 5

ANTI-SOCIALIST FRONT

Conservative Overtures FIRM REJECTION BY LIBERALS Rec. 11 p.m. LONDON, May 6. The Liberal Party Chief, Lord Moynihan, firmly rejected Conservative Party overtures for a joint anti-Socialist front. Addressing the National Union of Liberal Clubs, he declared: “It is not easy to forget the fate of Liberals who joined the conservatives in the past." Lord Moynihan warned party members who were “ hesitating ” in the face of Conservative wooing that they would not help to oust the Labour Party by joining the Conservatives. He added: “No Liberal will tolerate any attempt to unite completely with any other party. The continued independence of our party is essential.” He dismissed as “ clumsy and unattractive ” the Conservative chairman, Lord Woolton’s, recent approach. He said: “Lord Woolton repeated in different words what was in effect a request that the Liberals and Conservatives should bury the hatchet and work together as Conservatives. It is to these last two words that the Liberal Party will never agree.” Lord Moynihan conceded that the Liberal and Labour Parties were now further apart than they had been for a very long time, but he added: “ If the Tories got back into power the swing to Socialism after their term of office would result in a Government far more Left than the present One. The final swing would be to Communism.”