LIBERAL PARTY TACTICS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 3 January 1931, Page 7

LIBERAL PARTY TACTICS

STRONGLY CRITICISED The attitude of the liberal Party was strongly criticised by Sir John Simon in a speech at Cleekhcalon, Spon Valley, last month. He said that the sole reason why this year, for the first time in his experience, Liberals had failed to put down an amendment to the Address, was because, if they did so, and there was any danger of the Conservative Opposition voting for it, Liberals would have to run away from their own amendment, if they did not wish to see the Government defeated. That was a position which seemed to him intolerable, and he did not believe that Liberal influence in Parliament or in the country could revive as long as it continued. The decision of the Liberal Party to support those measures of which they approved and to oppose those measures which they believed to ho bad seemed to him in recent months to have undergone a subtle change. They still supported the Government in matters of which they approved, but when they came across a thing of which they as Liberals did not really approve at all, instead of voting against it. some of them constantly abstained. This shrinkage from giving an adverse vote easily became a habit. It might proceed from the highest motives, hut it was not understood by the country or respected by the Government. They should, lie believed, best serve their country if they did not spend too much of their time in tactical calculations, but took a bold stand, come what might, for the things in which they believed.

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