LABOURITES DENOUNCED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 835, 2 December 1929, Page 9

LABOURITES DENOUNCED

BIRKENHEAD’S SAVAGE ATTACK *

“DESTRUCTIVE POLICY” tinted P.A.—By Telegraph.—Copyright LONDON, Sunday. * The former Secretary of State for India, the Earl of Birkenhead, speaka nieeting of the Conservative Associations, said he considered that the tone adopted by Mr. Snowden, C hancellor of the Exchequer, at the recent Hague Conference, in insisting on something for which the Conservative Government would have been equally insistent, but more polite, was ciHen to British diplomatic traditions. “It is astonishing that London should gallop forward to acclaim Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden and confer on them the freedom of the city. It was in the balance in 1914-18 whether the Empire would survive or be smashed. Mr. Snowden contributed a constant stream of defeatism. Mr. MacDonald excited only a strike in the mercantile marine when It refused to convey him to a Soviet conference. “Unless the Government is controlled it will destroy the whole basis on which our relationship with Egypt depends, and bankrupt us of our obligation to maintain the rights of civilised countries there. BENN CALLED FILIBUSTER “It the Government thinks it can escape its obligations to Europe it will prove itself to be a political infant. “There is no immediate prospect of Dominion status for India. It would dissolve India into anarchy. I wish some ‘son of toil’ and a competent trades unionist, were Secretary of State for India. It is not the place for a second-rate Parliamentary filibuster.

“We were finding work for more men in England than were employed in July, 1914. Our right to large scale migration lias been greatly restricted. The Government places burden after burden on capital. We shall soon find 250,000 bright-eyed boys, who should be seeking work, receiving the dole."