VOTE OF CONFIDENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 January 1942, Page 3

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE

DEMANDED BY PREMIER MORE BLOWS TO COME. POSITION MUST BE CLARIFIED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9-20 a.m.) RUGBY, January 27. Mr Churchill said: “Since my return to this country I have come to the con- ' elusion that I must ask to be sustained by a vote of confidence from the House of Commons. This is a thoroughly normal constitutional Democratic procedure. The debate on the war has been asked for and arranged in the fullest and freest manner for three whole days. Any member will be free to say anything he thinks about or against the administration or against the composition or personalities of the Government to his heart’s content, _ subject only to the reservation which the House always so carefully observes about military secrets. Could you. have anything freer than that or any higher expression of Democracy than that? Very few other countries have institutions strong enough to sustain a thing like that while they are fighting for their lives. I leave it to the House to explain what has led me to ask for its exceptional support at this time. It has been suggested that we should have a day’s debate of this kind, in which the Government would no, doubt be lustily belaboured by some of those who have lighter burdens to carry and that at the end we should separate without a division. In this case such sections of the Press which are hostile, and there are some whose hostility is pronounced, could declare that the Government credit was broken and it might even be hinted after all that has passed and discussions there . have been, that it had been privately intimated to me that I should be very reckless if I asked for a vote of confidence from Parliament. The matter does not cease there. It must be remembered these reports can then be flashed all over the world and repeated in enemy broadcasts night after night, in order to show that the Prime Minister had no right, to speak for the nation and that the Government in Britain was about to collapse. Anyone who listens to fulminations that come from across the water know that is not an exaggeration. “There is another aspect. We in this island for a long time were alone in holding up the torch. We are no longer alone. Now we are now at the centre and among the twenty-eight united nations comprising more than threefourths of the population of the globe. Whoever speaks for Britain at this moment must be speaking not only in the name of the people —and of that I am pretty sure I am —but in the name of Parliament and above all of the House of Commons. It is genuine public interest that requires these facts should be made manifest in a formal way. “We have had a great deal of bad news lately from the Far East and I think it is possible for reasons which I shall presently explain, we shall have a great deal more. In this bad news there will be many delays, blunders and shortcomings, both in the Far East and elsewhere. 1 see all this rolling towards us like waves in a storm and that is another reason why I require a formal solemn oath of confidence from the (House of Commons, which hitherto in this has never flinched, > “The House of Commons would fail in its duty if it did not insist on two things; firstly, freedom of debate, and, secondly, a clear, honest, blunt vote thereafter. Then we shall know where we are and those with whom we have to deal at home or abroad. Friends or foes will know where we are and i where they are. It is because we have • a free debate in which twenty or thirty members may take part that I demand an expression of opinion from three to four hundred members who have to sit silent. It is because many things have gone badly and worse is to come that I demand a vote of confidence.”