LONDON TOPICS.

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 1281, 19 August 1930, Page 3

LONDON TOPICS.

: Mr Mac Donald has lost no time il outlining, perhaps *. little vaguely Socialism's counter to Mr Baldwin's statement of Conservative agriculture policy. The Prime Minister's panaceas include marketing schemes, antidumping} measures, guaranteed prices and a home-grown quota for wheat. But some of these projects conflict with Freetrade principles, and may lead to strong antagonist by Mr Philip Snowderi. No doubt the Labour extremeists would cheerfully see, him thrown over, but Mr Snowden has a powerful backing amongst the Labour moderates, and his defection would be a severe blow to the Ministry. Yet Socialists, however confident of the industrial centres, regard rural, support as essential to an independent ■"majority at Westminster. "DR ADDISpN, I PRESUME!" Whether the suggested three-part conference on agriculture ever came to anything is still to be seen. " But if the - proposal does achieve reality, it will not be without its piquant embarrassments. Mr Stanley Baldwin is not only a breeder of^pigs and an agricultural expert, but his -relations with Labour's new Minister for Agriculture Dr Addison, are^perfectly easy. The juxtaposition at a conference . of Dr 1 Addison and Mr. Lloyd George, however, . might prove slightly difficult. The Minister for Agriculture must be a very broadminded politician indeed if he has either forgotten or forgiven Mr Lloyd \ George's description of his f enß|vjal from the Ministry of Health as due to "incompetence:' 5 R. L. S. once declared that to be the one word no man could stomach. - : CABINET AND RUSSIA. There are -whispers that, when the Cabinet inquiry into anti-British activities by Moscow is completed, the. Governjment may make a sensational decision.; There is not the shadow of a doubt all the Soviet's pledg es have been N br6ken, and active) sedition carried on, both m Indies and m this country.- All Mr Henderson's urgent remonstrances meet, with specious sympathy, and with the old subterfuge, long ago ■denounced bj r Mr Mac Donald, that the Moscow Soviet is not the same body as the Third International, which is •demonstrably a lie. Each new revelatioa of Soviet hostility is countered here by delusiye reports of big contracts, about to be placed. Moscow has fooled the Government to the top of its bent, and the Cabinet may anticipate certain trouble by itself breakingoff relations. •