British Labour Men Meet

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 167, 5 October 1927, Page 1

British Labour Men Meet

ELECTION PROGRAMME “Must Not Be Flashy or Superficial” By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. Received 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Tuesday. HOW far the slogan, “Socialism in our time,” is safely adoptable, exercised the Labour Party Conference at Blackpool. On Mr. Ramsay MacDont.ld’s motion, the executive was instructed to prepare a broad outline of the election programme. Mr. MacDonald described the Baldwin Cabinet as “limpets, determined in the interests of their own supporters, to drain the cup of their authority to the dregs.”

/CONTINUING, he said that Labour’s programme must not be flashy or superficial. The party too long had suffered through unauthorised programmes. It must educate the electorate to face the great fundamentals. The remark of a Communist sympathiser, Mr. Henry Pollitt, "Here’s a string of resolutions not mentioning Socialism.” ca.used Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., to complain that there was suspicion In Mr. Pollitt’s every wonl- - this Mr. J. Maxton, M.P., demanded that the programme should not be diluted to meet the timid ones here, the prejudiced, ones there, and the interested ones elsewhere but that it be something sure to command a majority. . .. Mr. Ernest Bevin, secretary of the Dockers’ Union, asked: “Why talk as if the working class was entirely made up of class-conscious Socialists, when actually there are thousands of working Tories” I have been in a few strikes, and it was not always the Tories who were the blacklegs. Mr A. J. Cool: appealed for a united front! but not a sacrifice of principles. Mr. J. H. Thomas, M.P., said: Getting down to brass tacks, the only

test is, ‘Can you deliver the goods?’ It is deceit to talk of accomplishing the programme in one Parliament. The executive must be trusted to prepare a programme of which we could say, ‘We will see it through.’ ” Mr. MacDonald, summing up, declined to jerrybuild. He said: "In the background of ail our programmes is Socialism, not as a nice decorative scene, but as the completion of what we are working out on Parliament’s great stage.” The motion was carried, the chairman ruling out the amendment. —A. and N.Z.

LABOUR CRITICISED

INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN SIR ALFRED MOND'S VIEW LONDON, Monday. In the course of a speech at Cardiff Sir Alfred Mond, M.P., said industry in Britain was on the point of reviving. Many steps could be taken for the reorganisation and co-operation of British industries, to enable manufacturers to compete with the stable industries of Europe and America, but the task would be arduous and it required time, credit, capital and the confidence of the business world. The surtax proposal by the Labour Party, by which it expected to raise £100,000,000, was, he said, the capital levy in a new garb, and, as was usual with the Labour Party’s finance, it entailed a gross mistake in calculation. If the sources of this taxation were analysed it would be seen that the utmost it would be possible to obtain would he £40,000,000. Meanwhile, the movement toward industrial peace was, said Sir Alfred, growing apace, and the trade unionists were turning from politics to industry.—A. and N.Z.