LLOYD GEORGE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 March 1929, Page 6

LLOYD GEORGE

AX INTERESTING SPEECH. (United Press Assooiation—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). LONDpN, March 27. .Air Lloyd George delivered a speech at Albert Hall, under the Chairmanship of the .Marquis of Reading, in support of the Liberal Party’s programme, for dealing with the unemployment.

Mr Lloyd George was vociferously acclaimed. He spoke for seventy-five minutes, and his speech was relayed to thirteen towns along two thousand miles of main trunk line, and was heard by fifty thousand people. Ho said:—

“My pledge, which is based on j tested proposals, promised the reduction of the unemployment to normal within one year on work that is nationally essential, without additional taxation. 1 have vainly implored tin. Government during the past session to grapple with this problem, and T am now directly appealing to the country. The Tory programme "ill not be launched till the election eve. when there will be no time to criticiseit. Labour has eighty inconsistent propositions. I here are, including the dependents, nearly 'four million sufferers from the unemployment, casting for the necessities of existence, six hundred million sterling since the Armistice. There is plenty of work to be done, namely the construction of the -British roads, to meet the demands of new traffic*. The London streets now carry 250 vehicles compared with each hundred carried In 1921. The Ministry of Transport has accepted plans, hut it has done nothing.” The Government, he said, was vanity urged to link up the existing roads. “ It is a Government of missing links,’* lie said. “ Its plans for slum improvement will be futile. Lacking improved communications, we propose to develop the telephone system in England, which stands only tenth in this connection on the list of the nations. Wo will deal with agriculture, drainage, restoring two millions of the waterlogged acres to cultivation, thereby providing employment for the workless.” • . Mr Lloyd George continued:— “Critics now admit that every million sterling spent on roadmaking would employ five thousand men in the country : but the cities object that it v* wasteful to spend two hundred millions in two years. We spent five thousand, millions in two years in war time, and we have nothing to show loi it- L have nothing to show for the present dole expenditure! isn’t that waste Our programme is for five years, hut we are concentrating on the first two years, after which the recovery. m trade will increase the difficulty m obtaining labour for roadmaking. We are financing the scheme by a loan of. say, two hundred millions, over a term of 'five years, on the security of the road fund and the values created by the new roads, repaying it from the annual increase in the road fund, which will suffice, despite Mr Churchill’s recent raid of thirty millions on t:i* Road Fund. Our other projects would be financed bv taking six hundred thousand people off the insurance fund, while twelve hundred thousand would be on wages, instead of on tho dole, with the out-door relief disappearing.” Mr liloyd George continued: “We aro spending 175 millions on armaments this year, compared to onl\ sevf*itv-fivo millions before the war. when the German fleet existed. What, if the use of the peace pacts if the expenditure is not rodue|edP Sir Austen Chamberlain’s spirit lof Locarno is badly corked nowadays. ■ t is only jailing rainbows on the sky. Bind const»ng with France to make a fj^Hlonr—4i liugelv armamentWe toou take pro- •’ i^ptensivc 'v* ■■ W-*-' -./7’V- 1 ~ ', B ctators.