“DEAR COAL” CRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 863, 6 January 1930, Page 9

“DEAR COAL” CRY

MACDONALD’S ATTACK ON RIVAL LEADERS LIBERALS HOLD THE KEY LONDON, Saturday. The Prime Minister, Mr. MacDonald, writing in the Glasgow newspaper "Forward,” attacks Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill. He says they seem to have decided at all costs to defeat the Government by their “dear coal” cry. They proposed to doom the miners to long working hours and to defeat the only chance of a lifetime to organise a deplorable trade and give internal peace. Mr. MacDonald says Mr. George’s speech on the subject was plainly designed to prevent the Liberals cooperating with the Government, and to defeat the good relations already built up between them. The manoeuvre will be tried again and again, but whether it will succeed depends upon the Liberals. Labour is not disturbed, and will pursue the even tenor of its way, trusting the electors to give it a fair deal and just judgment.

Speaking in the course of the second reading debate on the Government’s Coal Bill in the House of Commons on December 19, Mr. Lloyd George said the measure contained the worst features of Socialism and individualism, without the redeeming features of either. Two provisions of the Bill, of which he approved, were those relating to the reduction of hours and the establishment of a national wages board. Nine-tenths of the Bill concerned fixation of prices and limitation of output. In the same debate, Mr. Winston Churchill said the measure was most aptly described as “the Dear Coal Bill.’’ It was a deliberate attempt to levy a new and indirect tax on the public for the benefit of sectional interests.