BUSY BEAVERBROOK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 903, 21 February 1930, Page 11

BUSY BEAVERBROOK

PUBLIC ORGANISATION OF NEW PARTY PREDICTIONS OF CRITICS LONDON, Wednesday. Lord Beaverbrook announces that the United Empire Party will now proceed to organise local branches and raise a fighting fund of £IOO,OOO. Lists of the subscriptions received are to be published in the Press and expenditure will be shown in audited accounts. “This will be a new departure iu British political life,” says Lord Beaverbrook. “Everything we do will be done in the full light of day.” Mr. L. S. Amery, ex-Secretary of State for the Dominions, in an address to the Derbyshire branch of the Conservative Party, said he rejoiced last summer when Lord Beaverbrook commenced preaching the ideal of Empire free trade. He regretted the decision to form the United Empire Party, however, because lie feared that the energies of the Empire crusaders might be, diverted to the machinery of party organisation. That would involve a struggle between candidates. The new movement could endanger the Conservatives if the public believed they were not sufficiently in earnest or did not intend to forward the cause of Empire unity. A remarkable statement is made by the “Daily Herald’s” political correspondent to the effect that the life of the United Empire Party will be short and that the opposition of this big newspaper group, representing Conservatism, will be bought off. The amount of the price will be announced by the Leader of the Conservatives, Mr. Baldwin, when he speaks on his party’s agricultural policy as promised, says the correspondent. “I have reason to believe,” he adds, “that the Conservative chiefs have agreed that Mr. Baldwin shall promise the farmers a measure of protection involving some food taxes.”