CALL TO DISARM

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 1

CALL TO DISARM

LORDS DISCUSS GENEVA FAILURE NAVIES AND DIPLOMACY British Wireless—Press Assn.—Copyright RUGBY. Thursday. In an address at the Constitutional Club the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Winston Churchill, reviewed th» record of the Government. He said it had been elected to >< cure stability, and with Mr. Baldwin at its head there was a belief that the nation would be Riven that i>eriod of repose, in order to recuperate, which for so loug it had urgently needed. “Three years have passed.” M Churchill continued, “and we have to say first of all that we have kept the peace. We have kept the peace abroad, and as far as it lay in our power we have kept the peace at home. The three years have been a period of revival, recuperation and convalescence, both for Britaiu and for Etfrope. “Many people will say our progress has not been what was expected or hoped. That is undoubtedly true, but our progress has been appreciable and continuous. “By every test one can apply the world is more secure, the British Em pire is more united and safer, th-' prosperity of this country is more advanced and the social and economic dangers which menaced us. and still menace us seriously, have been held at bay. MALIGNANT TROUBLES “Nothing has been done which has weakened the resources of Britain. The Government finds itself still with two years of life in this Parliament 1 and a better chance than it had three j years ago, when it assumed the re- : sponsibility of power. “We have passed through the very Iworst, and in some respects the most malignant, industrial troubles which the history of this country or of any modern State has ever witnessed —the general strike and the prolonged paralysis cm the coalfields. These two events destroyed a great part of the improvement for which one otherwise might have hoped. “The Government’s subsidy to the coal-mining industry upset its first year’s finance. The strike itself des troyed its second year’s finance and the aftermath of the strike, involving as it did a of between £20,000.000 and £30.000,000 in revenue, overclouds the country at the present time. NO NEED FOR SHAME “The Government has been able to come through this period without increasing direct taxation, without restoring indirect taxation on the necessaries of life, and at the same time it has not merely retained the sink-ing-fund of £50,000,000. which is statutory, but has raised it to £65,000,000. “These things constitute an achievement of which no one need be ashamed.” Referring to the passing of the Trade Disputes and Trades Union Act. Mr. Churchill said it had been welcomed by the large majority of the members of the trades unions them selves as only right and fair, and it had been followed by a better spirit in industry.—A. and N.Z.