Evening Post. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1932. UNITY AND COURAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 126, 24 November 1932, Page 12

Evening Post. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1932. UNITY AND COURAGE

There was a large attendance in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon for the opening of the debate lon the Address-in-Reply, and all I parties j oined in cheering Mr. Winston Churchill when he made his first appearance after his recent illness. There were, however, no cheers for Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, and for the very good reason that he has not had a recent illness. The rumours to the contrary, on the strength of'which the "Daily Herald's" special representative had been reconstructing the Cabinet, had Vidently not been . taken seriously by the House of Commons. Though the "Daily Herald" doubtless wishes the Prime Minister no ill, it would of course be glad as anOpposition paper to see the Government reconstructed, but surely at a time of so much trouble, private and public, national and international,' it should resist the temptation to give substance to disturbing and distressing rumours. The foreign outlook alone, on which the continued cooperation of Mr. Arthur Henderson with Sir John Simon in the cause of disarmament:at Geneva is an indica-: tion of the'close, agreement; of British parties, should suffice to restrain prxy olas from such deplorable excesses. In Manchuria,and Germany, in Washington" and Geneva there are issues pending iof :suchT - appalling gravity that theY exploiting of idle rumours for party .purposes is the last thing that a self-respecting Opposition ought to countenance. •'. •■•'•

From the standpoint of the nation the continuance of the National Government seems indeed to be hardly, if at all, less indispensable than it was a year ago, and Mr. MacDonald's leadership is beyond question just as essential to the existence of the National Government as it was then. The second point is not denied by the "Daily Herald's" correspondent. On the contrary, it forms the basis of his speculation, for he assumes as self-evident that the retirement of Mr. Mac Donald would mean that the National Government would be replaced by a Conservative Government. If one could agree with Lord Snowden, that-would ■ be no great calamity, since he regards the present Government as having. forfeited its right to be regarded as a National Government already. In a broadcast address which was published in the "Listener" of sth October he summarised the reasons for the resignations from the Government as follows:—

We have left it because it has ceased to be a National Government. It has become a party Government pursuing a party policy. And that party policy is leading the country deeper and deeper into the depths of trade depression*. AYe remained in the Government until it had done the work for-which it came into existence. We could not remain in it when it put a party programme before the national interests.

What Lord Snowden meant by the Government's completion of the work for which ilj was formed had been previously explained. In a part of the address which dealt with the reasons why he and his colleagues did not persist in the resignations which they had tendered when the Government decided to ifitroduce a tariff, he said:— •

\t that time the specific work for which the National Government had been formed had not been completed. We had to wait until April to see if the Budget had, in fact, balanced. The position of sterling was still precarious.. Now these reasons which then influenced us no longer exist.

And so, after waiting till September to see whether Ottawa was really going to reduce tariffs, and finding that it had increased them, Lord Snowden and his friends resigned. The two striking features of his address were that it was almost entirely confined to fiscal policy, and especially to Ottawa, and that there was not a single word to suggest that there were any perilous foreign problems demanding the attention of a strong and truly National Government. The speech of Mr. Baldwin,

who, in pursuance of the 8.8.C.'s policy of strict neutrality, followed Lord Snowden, was remarkable for its brevity, its candour, its lack of the controversial note, and its plea for a little more time than the impatience of the Freetraders had conceded to the Government. After a reference to the easy escape from responsibility by resignation, Mr. Baldwin proceeded:—

I am not built that way. The increasing difficulties of the world situation make me more resolved to stick to the team. I know we shall win through, but I always knew that ;the first two years of the National Government after the crisis of twelve months ago will be the testing time both for the Government and for the nation, not only, a testing of its courage, but a testing of its endurance, -ivhieh,-is the more searching thing. . ..,-.-Time alone will show -whether what we have done at Ottawa precludes our making agreements with other countries. They evidently do not think so in their anxiety to do business with us. As I have said often before, fiscal measures, in my view, are not gospels. They are matters solely of expediency, and we will try them out; but it needs patience, because in these changes you cannot expect to see the results of your work immediately.

Sir Herbert Samuel, who spoke .on the following day (Ist October) was necessarily as much concerned as Lord Snowden to justify his resignation by exposing the dangers of the Ottawa policy. His attack was more specific and therefore more effective than Lord Snowden's, but on such an occasion it would have been' in better taste to omit the concluding appeal to the classes—miners, cotton workers, shipbuilders, etc.—whose interests he believed to have been prejudiced at Ottawa; The space thus saved could have been used to give strength and colour to his continued support of the Government on almost every other issue. :

But Sir Herbert Samuel was balanced by Sir John Simon in what was by far the most cogent of the four addresses. •■ The first of his reasons for the determination' of his party "to do all that we can .to preserve the national character . 6f ; the ■Administration" was that in isuch a time it was necessary to take "a' wide and comprehensive view" and not to 'treat the fiscal question as though it were the sole concern of a National Cabinet. ■■'.- ~-•' V; •'- ■■."■ '

The second reason, said Sir", John, is this: The Government of this .country is -faced at the present time, at, the present hour, with as large a collection of vital issues to be handled and solved as have ever' presented' themselves in the - long history •of British statesmanship, and, on all these, except tariffs, the Cabinet has remained agreed. India—We are closely engaged at this very time in considering how to deal, not only in principle, but in detail, with the vast Indian constitutional problem, • and only those who have devoted the whole of their minds to its study can have any true conception either of its difficulty or its importance. I most deeply deplore the withdrawals from the ranks at this its most critical stage. Ireland—Does anybody suppose that an exodus of all the Liberals from the Government -would be a contribution toward reconciliation and good-feeling between us and the Irish Free State? For my part, I -would stay in the Government to-day...for. that reason alone. ' ■".'"' ' .

When we remember what Sir John Simon knows and thinks and feels about India, the special prominence thus assigned to reconciliation" with Ireland is almost startling. Reparations and disarmament were the two other international issues mentioned.. A strong defence of the Ottawa policy from the Free Trade standpoint followed,:;but tin a stirring peroration Sir ■John Simon: recurred to the paramount importance of foreign policy. .%:.:■ ,;: . •.../■'

The tension in'Europe,:he said, the problem of -war debts, the eWorld economic crisis, world-wide unemployment, disarmament—these things'call for unity. To quote Sir Herbert Samuel once again, "There are grave questions facing the world. In. a shifting and swaying Europe, the political unity in Britain helps to give stability." ManyContinental statesmen, haye. said to my colleagues and myself that the: British political unity gives a wide sense of security. . . .-Unity, courage, and determination will holp on world recovery, and will pull the country through. :

Unity, courage, and determination will pull Great Britain through, and the salvation of- New Zealand depends on exactly the same qualities.