“KING WAS ILL-ADVISED”

Taranaki Daily News, 2 August 1932, Page 7

“KING WAS ILL-ADVISED”

CHEESE-PARING ECONOMY QUESTION OF NEUTRALITY CRITICISM BY H. G. WELLS ATTACK ON LABOUR PARTY gy Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. London, July 31. Mr. H. G. Wells, in the course of a scathing attack on the Labour Paity, delivered at the Liberal Party Summer School, said: “The King was so illadvised as to depart from his proper political and social neutrality and lead a movement for cheese-paring and grinding the faces of the needy in the interests of the debt collector, and not a soul in the Labour Party said what ought to have been said about the King or that miserable campaign of unintelligent economy which cast a dismal shadow over the closing months of 1931.” Stf Michael Sadler, master at University College, Oxford, who was chairman of the meeting, .said he considered the reference to the King like a very dark line in the large picture of national life amplifying strong admiration and gratitude for the noble things the Prince, of Wales and the Royal Family were doing for the welfare of the country, the relief of suffering and the encouragement •of the people. Commander Kenworthy (former Labour M.P.), commenting on Mr. Wells’ statement, declares that the King acted within the Constitution. The real villains of the piece, he says, were Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Lord Snowden, who prepared the coup d’etat months previously. Far from no Labour Party voice being raised, the Labour Party members were all prepared to go to the wilderness, as they did, rather than be parties to rescuing bankers at the expense of the poor. Mr. Wells’ facts were all wrong, and Commander Kenworthy disagreed with his criticism. “The King took the hew Cabinet’s advice that economy was absolutely necessary, but the Labourites declined to accept the policy,” said Mr. George Lansbury, leader of the Labour Party, in an interview. “Nobody knows better than Mr. Wells that it is nonsense to say that Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Thomas and a few others represented Labour.”