BRITISH ELECTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 October 1931, Page 6

BRITISH ELECTIONS

MR SNOWDEN. A BROADCAST SPEECH. ATTACK OF LABOR POLICY. (Received this day at 10.15 a.m.) fOaited Preaij Association.—Ly Electric Telegraph .—Copyright. ] LONDON, October 18. Mr Snowden, in a broadcast address, regretted controversial party questions were being introduced into the election. 'He did not believe the Conservative leader would regard a majority as giving a mandate for a general system of protection. Such a radical departure should depend upon on .emphatic, unequivocal decision of the electorate. It became clear to him early in the year that we were on the edge of National bankruptcy and that economy was absolutely essential. We are the most heavily faxed Nation in the world. Nearly one third of the National income was taxed this year for rates and taxes.

Mr Snowden said the financial situation earlier in the year was so serious that by mid-November if things had been allowed to drift there would have been no money to. pay unemployment benefits. The Labor Party’s programme was the most fanatic and impracticable ever put before the electors. The proposal .to nationalise the banks, control investments, mobilise foreign investors to finance a madcap policy, was not Socialism, ..it was Bolshevism run mad. If the programme ; was taken seriously ' .it would destroy every vestige of confidence and plunge the. country’ info irretrievable ruin.

MR THOMAS HOWLED DOWN. .. . " , LONDON, Ocfober 18. A Liverpool audience howled down Mr Thomas when supporting Derwent Hall ■Caine, a Nationalist Labourite. The meeting was abandoned after half an hour’s pandemonium, marked by shouts of '“Traitor, twister.” CHANCELLOR FIGHTING. MR SNOWDEN’S FIGURES. (Received this dav at noon.) ** * LONDON, October 18. From the fireside at No. .11 Downing Street, Mr Philip Snowden is doing, devastating work on behalf of . the National campaign. His pen is tireless and hisk tongue trenchant. Seated at a microphone last night he riddled the fallacies with which ex-Cabinet-colleagues were wooing the country. There is ,a silkiness in his voice and the subtle fascination of his Yorkshire accent, .which make every listener feel it is a personal talk to him, but it is the, facts that Air Snodwen presents, that makes him the campaign’s outstanding protagonist and an example to unemployeds, to whom Mr Henderson’s promises to restore the dole uncut. ?s es war It is learned from the Chancellor that 'if tlie Rational Government had not stopped the drift there would not have-been funds to pay the dole by midrNovember. «

‘Equally striking was his comparison of to-day with 1906, when he entered .Parliament. Then the total expenditure was 123 . millions and to-day they are 804 millions, . Social services then were eighteen millions, to-day tEey are 237 millions of /which 132 millions is dole, which is more than the nat'-on’s total expenditure. ...... , ;: In 1906,- taxation then took one thirteenth of the national income. To-day it is one third. All this had come from ■industry. Now it was appalling ignorance or wilful deception, when the Labourites tell now, thinking there are enormous resources from which to continue spending at their , hearts content.