WORLD RECOVERY

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21414, 5 March 1935, Page 12

WORLD RECOVERY

+ GREAT BRITAIN'S LEAD FOUR OBJECTIVES OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT C»ROM OUR 0*« CORRESPONDIKT.) LONDON, February 2. Mr Anthony Eden, Lord Privy Seal, went to Wavertree to support the Conservative National candidate in the by-election. Referring to the results of the National Government, he said that in the judgment of the nations it was Great Britain that

was leading the world back to recovery to-day. These results had been made possible by the courage and steadfastness of the British people and by the wise direction of the Government's policy. "But what of the future?" he asked. "What are the next objectives and how are they to be reached? Answers to these questions are of the first importance in contemporary politics. They are: "Maintenance of peace in the world through the support of the League of Nations and the strengthening of the collective peace system. "Development of relations of frank and cordial friendship with the United States of America. "Close co-operation in policy and in commerce as in personal relations with kinsfolk in the Dominions and colonies overseas. "At home a higher standard of life for our people, better food, better clothing, better housing, an improving standard of health—we should be an A 1 and not a C 3 nation —more regular employment, shorter hours of work, a fuller hapoiness for every section of our people. These are the objectives which a National Government must keep steadily before it and which. I am convinced, only a National Government can achieve."

The lesson of the last three years was surely that the National Government must go on. It was indispensable. In the present disturbed state of world conditions this country was the most influential stabilising element that existed. It was of the first importance, therefore, not only to ourselves but to the peace ol the world, that the authority of his Majesty's Government should be unimpaired. The Conservative party never did better service for the nation than when under Mr Baldwin's leadership, it decided to forgo a certain party victory for the greater good. That was in the best tradition of their party. They must not go back on it now when the work was but half done. Those who sought to do so, those members of the party who would disrupt the National Government, bore an unenviable responsibility. Mutual Prosperity One of the issues of the election, though not the main one, was the future constitution for India. The ; problem of the future government of India had been the subject of exhaustive study, not only by the Government itself but by a parliamentary committee of unexampled authority. Former Viceroys and former Governors, like Lord Hardings, Lord Irwin, Lord Zetland, Lord Reading, Lord Lytton. men who had given their lives to public service like Lord Derby, Sir Austen Chamberlain, Lord Eustace Percy, and others, were surely entitled to be heard. All of these endorsed the report on which the Government had based the bill before Parliament. It was utterly fantastic to suggest that these men had anything else at heart but the future good relations of Britain and of India in politics, in commerce, in mutual prosperity.

The unchanging East was changing rapidly. Was it to be thought that India alone could escape this influence—an India which we for nearly a century hrd encouraged to follow our ideals, to practise our institutions? It was surely the path of wise statesmanship to face these realities and to adapt our policies to meet them. The India Bill did not mean any fundamental change of policy. "We embarked on the policy of giving India a voice in her own affairs long before the war," added Mr Eden. "The Montagu-Chelms-ford reforms >f 1919 were a step in the same direction, and were the promise of further changes to come. In the light of the experience gained in working those reforms every living former Viceroy, as well as Lord Willingi" n, has approved the present proposals." Addressing those of "his own generation—the younger war generation, so often called the missing generation"—Mr Eden said: "What is our position in these matters? What is our incentive in politics in this post-war world? It is surely this—that we are not satisfied with conditions as they are, that we are determined to improve them . . . by the recognition of the essential merits of our own institutions and by a determination to develop and adapt them by the exercise of those very traditional qualities which have won for our people their liberties and given to the British race a political leadership in the world."