The Price of 1926

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 507, 9 November 1928, Page 9

The Price of 1926

GENERAL STRIKE’S EFFECT

Mr Churchill on Unemployment

“'THE price of 1926 must he paid,” said Mr. Winston 1 Churchill during the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Commons, referring to the General Strike, and replying to a Labour accusation that the Government was responsible for the present amount of unemployment in Great Britain. lie pointed out, too, that the effects of the war and the falling off of other countries’ demand for British goods, due to increased foreign competition, were contributory causes.

British Official Wireless Reed. 12.30 p.m. RUGBY, Thursday. When the debate on the Address-in-Reply to the King’s Speech was resumed in the House of Commons, Mr. J. R. Clynes, on behalf of the Labour Party, moved an amendment regretting that although the GGovernment had had four year’s of office, the country was burdened with unemployment in a more acute form. Appalling conditions prevailed in many mining areas, he said, and the proposals outlined in the King's Speech were utterly inadequate to meet the existing industrial situation. Mr. Winston Churchill replied with an exhaustive analysis of the industrial situation, dealing with the suggestion made by Mr. Clynes that this country should resume relations with Russia as a means of reducing unemployment. He declared that anyone who supposed that the readmission of the Soviet Embassy would make the slightest contribution to the problem of employment was misleading himself, and would mislead others. It was very easy to say that the present industrial situation was the fault of the Government, but it was far easier to say, and easier to prove, that a large part of it was the fault of the L&bour Party. Had Mr. Clynes forgotten the general strike, and the prolonged coal stoppage of 1926? Through these, he said, we had been thrown back two or three years behind the onward march of other nations. Our reserves of industry were exhausted during that period, and the resources of the State to aid misfortune had been grievously impaired. Had the Labour Party not admitted its responsibility? he asked. Had there not been an effort on the part of the responsible leaders of Labour to establish a different and saner policy? Were not Communists being excluded from. Labour Party politics? Was not Russian inigrference being repulsed in its domestic affairs? Was not Mr. Cook, who led, the miners in 1926, being discredited? These signs of amendment were welcomed, but they were too late. The price of 1926 had to be paid. The problem of unemployment was wide and mysterious. There was heavy unemployment in the United States; and in Russia, under the most ruthless expression of Socialism, there was also very heavy unemployment. Neither of these countries was making anything like the provision to succour the unemployed that was being made here. He believed in the years before the war, there were daily less than 300,000 or 400,000 unemployed. There were now 1,374,000 unemployed. By the Great War a large part of the wealth of Britain and the world had been consumed. The world dl round had grown much bigger, afi3 countries which were quite ready before the war, to buy our various manufactures, wished to make things for themselves. Vigorous competitors met us in every foreign market, and our customers increasingly closed their doors upon our wares. We were wounded beyond all other producing countries with debt and taxation. Mr .Churchill pointed out that besides the great masses of persons under the Unemployment Insurance scheme, there were at present 224,000 women upon the unemployed lists, who were scarcely ever included in any other total. Then there were the coal-miners. Until three years ago 1,300,000 persons were engaged in the coal industry. Now there were only 920,000. GRAVEST AND GREATEST PROBLEM Mr. Waltfer Runciman (Labour): All the Ministerial assurances that bad trade is passing have been falsified. Safeguarding trade will not bring relief to the basic trades. “The gravest and greatest problem is in the position of the coal, cotton, and wol trades. Unless we find better ways of using coal, there is no hope for many parts of the coalfields. “The cotton trade crisis does not mean that past poverty is becoming chronic in parts of Lancashire. The woollen industry is suffering the loss of foreign markets.

| “The recovery of world trade will only come from the extension of personal energy, and the use of brains, courage, confidence, and skill.” Sir Robert Horne: Many of the unemployed would have emigrated before the war. He hoped that Empire settlement would be accelerated. It was not believed, he said, that oil would permanently displace coal. Better ways of using coal would be devised. Probably in the near future pulverised coal would be blown into ships as easy as oil through a pipeline. Iron and steel should he given a chance of proving their case for safeguarding the steel trade was essential to the very existence of the nation. Sir Oswald E. Mosley: If the aged could be removed from industry, and youtli delayed by raising the schoolleaving age. it would go a long way to solve unen /loyment.