OUTLOOK ON EUROPE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 17, 21 January 1924, Page 7

OUTLOOK ON EUROPE

HOW LABOUR STANDS

MR. J. H. THOMAS ON PATRIOTISM.

(RBTJTSR'S TELEQBAH.)

LONDON, 18th January. In the House of Commons the Hon. J. H. Thomas (Lab.) resumed the debate on the Address-in-Reply. He said that the Labour Party did not regret and would not apologise for their association with the Internationalist Labour Party. They were resolved to spare no effort to give the world and civilisation a common organisation which would bring the people together and enable them to understand each other. The more they understood each other the more difficult it would be for other people to plunge them into war. Mr. Thomas declared that British prestige was never so low as it was today. A situation was being created in Central Europe, necessitating expenditure in our own defence. It was asked how Labour was going to deal with France, and the implication suggested was that it would be war. But it was not real friendship to pretend that all ■Nyas well when it was not. If we believed that France was heading towards disaster we ought to say so. God forbid that any word of his should be construed as meaning that Labour was anxious to break with Trance or talk about war. But it was not surprising that France did not believe the Government, and treated them with contempt in view of their vacillating policy. Statements that the first steps of the Labour Government would be to corrupt the Army, Navy, and Police, to abolish marriage and introduce free love were mere rubbish. Decent men and women of all classes were anxious to remedy social conditions. The Labour Party would make mistakes, but the experience of the responsibility of government would-be good for them, and they would work with a single desire to make the country worthy of its citizens who had shown such patriotism at the time of its greatest trial. RISK OF WAR WITH FRANCE The Hon. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the Government had plainly told France that they would not answer for ' a continuance of friendly relations if siie-ujntinued to occupy the Ruhr. All desn-ud to avoid war, but they might come Lo a point when the nation would have to choose whether it would oa.ri-y out its views forcibly or lake the aiternutivp Ho begged Uie Labour Party not nnsiiJy to dismiss the Imperial preferonce proposals on any pedantic theory, and emphasised the enormous importance of Dominions' trade. Mr Chamberlain hoped that the Labour Govern-

ment would treat the proposals with all i the sympathy possible. He predicted that the Labour Party would find it impossible to abolish all food taxes, and if they could be satisfied that their proposals were expedient they might we;l without departing from their principles rearrange Food Duties so as to enable them to be carried out. The proposals were in the nature of a moral gesture, and the direction in which the gesture was made might affect very seriously the future attitude of the Dominions to Britain when a generation or two hence the Dominions were among the greatest nations of the earth. The action of the British Government to-day might determine the value they would be to the Empire and the help they would be to the peopie of Britain. , ■> SnVr'^n Chillnberlain declared that a Socialist Government would be a national misfortune, and warned the Labour sect on "i" . aIlowi"S: *c extremist end tt *™J CT a to° Powerful influence. He said that the Imperial preference proposals did not affect Pthe t ,u P est on profo ndlf aS S a^ not very distant future The Duchess of Atholl (Con) in a maiden speech supported the Governments proposals to develop means of laige centres to protect children born relating;^ ?" d t0 amend- th* ]aw brdera malntenan <=c and separation nh^ f°*l- Ge°rg? Lambert (Lib.) emphasised the necessity of a continuity of tW y h ln }? S" B1" rB- He decla«d The HJh°? V°te^ for the a™^dment. Monday WaS theU adJ°ura«* until