BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 9 November 1928, Page 5

BRITISH PARLIAMENT

REPLIES TO QUESTIONS

DEBATE ON ADDRESS

(British Ofiiciai AVireless.)

RUGBY, November S. Hon. AY. Churchill was asked in the Commons for a statements regardino; the recent conversations in Paris on the--reparations question. He replied that the conversation arose out of a decision taken at Geneva to set up a committee of financial experts to make recommendations for a complete and final settlement of the problem. During the conversations he made it clear ■ the British Government would continue w to require enough from Allied debts and reparations together to cover Britan.’s external debt payments. Mr Churchill continued: “ But I am glad to say the conversations revealed no disagreement in the principle between the Governments concerned. No final decision had yet been reached as to the personnel and date and place of the meeting of the committee but I hope all these preliminary questions will be settled and the committee constituted without any long delay. Perhaps I ought to say it ought not to be inferred that the German Government accepts the view which we take at the present, time.” Asked whether the reparations settlement was bound up with questions of evacuation of the Rhineland territory, Churchill replied that the matter Bivns entirely separate. w When the debate on the Addrcss-in-Reply to the King’s speech was resumed in the House of Commons, Air J. R. Clynes, on behalf of the Labour Party, moved an amendment regretting that although the Government bad bad four years of office, the country was burdened with in a more ,acute form, appalling conditions prevailed in many mining areas, and the proposals outlined in the King’s speech were utterly inadequate to meet the industrial situation. ■ Mr Churchill replied with an exhaustive analysis on the industrial situation.

Dealing with the suggestion made by Mr Clynes that this country should resume relations with Russia as a means of reducing unemployment, lie declared that anyone who supposed the Red Mission of the Soviet Embassy would make the slightest contribution to the problem of employment, was misleading himself and would mislead others. It was very easy to say that the present industrial situation was the fault of the Government, hut it was far easier to say and easier to prove that a large part of it was the fault of the Labour Party. Had Air Clynes forgotten tlie general strike and the proKngea coni stoppage of 1926? Through leseVcj had been thrown hack two or three years behind the onward march of other nations. Resolved industry were exhausted during that period and resources of the state to aid misfortune had been greviously impaired. Had the Labour Party not admitted their responsibility ? Had there not been an effort on the pqrt of respon- j sible leaders of Labour to establish a different and saner policy, aii'.i were not Communists being excluded from the Labour Party polities? AVas not Russian interference being repulsed in domestic affairs? AA as not Air C ook, who led the miners in 1926 being discredited? These signs of amendment were welcome, but they were too late. The price of 1926 had to he paid. The problem of unemployment was wide mysterious. There was heavy Unemployment in United States and in Russia under the most ruthless expression of socialism there was also very heavy unemployment. None of these countries was making anything like the provision to succour unemployed that was being made here. He believed in the years before the war if there were daily less than three or four hundred thousand unemployed. There wore now 1,27-1.000 unemployed. By the great war, a large part of. the wealth of Britain and the world had been lost. The world all round had grown much bigger and countries which were quite before the war to buy our various * manufactures, wished to nn.ke things themselves now. Alorc vigorous competitors met us in every foreign market, and our customers increasingly closed their doors upon our wares. AA r e were wounded beyond all other pro ducing countries with debt and taxation. . Mr Churchill pointed out that besides the great masses of persons under the unemployment insurance scheme there were at present 221.000 women upon unemployed lists, who were scarcely ever included in any other total. Then there were the coal miners. Until three years ago 1.600.000 persons were engaged in the coal industry. Now Piere were only 920,0p0. LONDON, November 8. In the Commons during the debate on unemployment lit. Hon. AA . Rtnuiman stated all ministerial assurances that had times in trade were passing had been falsified. Safeguarding would „ o t. brfhg relief to the basic trades. The gravest and greatest problem was the position of the coal, cotton and wool trades. Unless we found better ways e.if using coal, there was no hope for mam- parts of the coalfields, and the cotton trade crisis was by no means past. Poverty was becoming chronic in parts of Lancashire, woollens suffering from the loss of foreign markets. The re4ivery ofjworld trade could come only from an”extension of personal energy and use of brains, confidence, courage and skill. gj r \\ Horne said many of those Unemployed would in pre-war days •have emigrated. He hoped that Em p'ire settlement would he accelerated. He did not believe oil would permanently displace coal, but he considered < better ways of using the latter would