LABOUR IN OFFICE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40016, 29 October 1929, Page 1

LABOUR IN OFFICE.

Referring to future developments of political policy, Lord Eustace Percy said the main business of the Conservative Party was to look forward to the next stage and to take up the woi|k tliAt the Labour Party cannot dp. “The weakness of that party, its danger to the country, is not any lalek of competence among its leaders in the i House of lOommons. The Conservative Party has no monopoly of administrative ability. The weakness of the Lnbour Party is that it is maimed in working out policy, because it is tied down to principles and professions in which its leaders do not believe. The present Government cannot introduce the socialistic measures it has promised, not because it is a minority Government, but because its leaders do not believe in Socialism. I But its pledges prevent it from introducing anything else on its own initiative'. It must, as it were, always be looking one way and walking another. The Liberal Party c annot supply this laclk of clear policy because it, too, has paid lip service to impossible schemes, and is tainted with ‘stunt’ polities.. It is the Conservative Party which . must think out policy for the new post-reconstruction period on . which avc are entering, because such a policy must inevitably follow the lines.of Conservative principles. The two things we most need —better organisation of industry and better opportunities for the individual in industry;—can only. be .secured oip the basis of private ownership of capital and the encouragement of individual initiative and independence. It is for us to All in the outliifes of Mr. Baldwin’s election address and give the country such a policy.