BRITISH POLITICS.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17972, 18 March 1930, Page 7

BRITISH POLITICS.

LABOUR’S DILEMMA. AN ANXIOUS WEEK. LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE COMBINE. mited Press Assn. —Elec. Tel.—Copyright. LONDON, March 17. An anxious week lies before the British Labour Government in the House of Commons. The committee stage on the Coalmines Bill will be concluded on Thursday, which will be a critical day. The measure proposes that coalownet’s’ district committees should be empowered to fix minimum prices. The Conservatives and the Liberals both object to that provision and threaten to combine against the Government. They have tabled a joint amendment to delete the sub-section. Ministerial circles state that the trouble is that the adoption of the amendment will inevitably cause the withdrawal of the bill, a course which the miners bitterly oppose as it would mean the sacrifice of the prospect of a reduction in hours in the coming summer.

It is obviously dangerous for the Government to antagonise such a body of Labour supporters, so it is faced with a most difficult decision.

The other issue to be raised in the Coalmines Bill is the protection of public utility societies from an abnormal increase in the price of fuel. Still another interesting debate on Monday will arise from the justification by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr A." V. Alexander, of the sweeping naval reductions. In this matter the Government's principal critic will he Mr Winston Churchill.