HOUSE OF INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 14 March 1932, Page 8

HOUSE OF INDUSTRY

STANGLEHOLD ON FINANCE. LONDON, March 0. 'Speaking at the annual conference of the University Labour Federation afrCambridge, Mr S. C. Hobson said that two 'movements were on foot to strengthen the House of Lords to an extent that would' allhost make it invulnerable to any future Socialist con trol in the Commons. He foresaw,' not perhaps' in the immediate future, hut ultimately, the abolition of the House of Lords and the formation of a House of Industry, a ' powerful representative organisation of employers and employed to deal with economic control. He thought that the class struggle would finally express itself in some such economic organisation. One of the ultimate results of the reorganisation in industry would be that the State would he supplied with the necessary money from the sources of production, not from the results. “It would, in the end, mean the abolition of income tax. It would be a good thing for the Labour Party to go into the country next time and -av ‘Vote for the Labour Party and the abolition of the income tax.’ ” Mr Arthur Greenwood, Minister for Hbalth in the late' Labour Government, who presided, said that lie did not want to see the energies of the Labour movement diverted from their primary objective. The time to be spent in the tearing down cf tariffs in tlie first couple of years of the next Labour Government would he better devoted to getting a grip on the financial machines of the country The dinger he saw, having served ir. two Labour Administrations, was of living from hand to mouth and from day to day with current problems, huin'ys of them imposed on them'by their’ predecessors. They would have to turn their backs on what the present Government had done, and the first thing they had to do was to get a stranglehold on finance.