CENSURE MOTION

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 11, 10 December 1926, Page 7

CENSURE MOTION

DEFEATED IN THE COMMONS. HANDLING OF COAL DISPUTE. CRITICISM AND REPLY. (By Fl'Otric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, Dec. 8. In the House of Commons, Mr J. Ramsay MacDonald, moved the censure motion on the coal crisis, complaining of disregard of the Royal Commission’s findings, the Ministry’s partiality to the owners, and the latter’s imposition of harsh terms, and declaring that the only remedy for the trouble was the nationalisation of the industry. He said that even one of the Conservative amendments to the motion failed to congratulate the Ministry on what it had done. Mr MacDonald recalled that Viscount Chelmsford recently changed a Conservative majority of two thousand into a minority of one thousand. It was in that form that the Opposition would like to test the motion at the ballot box. Mr Baldwin, the speaker continued, had alienated the confidence which in 1924 brought the country to his feet. The Ministry had failed to get anything advantageous out of the money spent on the Royal Commission. Mr Evan Williams’ offensiveness defied the Cabinet, and Mr Cook’s incompetence baffled it. The Cabinet became a mere spectator, interfering only as the owners asked. The country had lost £500,000,000 while the owners were being given time to win. The miners had been taught that “might is right.” Extremism could be the only fruit of the Cabinet’s policy. It was the duty of the Government at once to go to the country, to receive the doom it had earned. Mr Baldwin greeted the hostilo Labour demonstration with the remark : “I shall be quite prepared to go to the country in good time.” Mr Baldwin went on to say that Mr MacDonald’s first task after the holiday was over was to father a shop-window motion for irresponsibles, at the dictation of Mr Cook, whose talk had prolonged the struggle and brought ignominious disaster. Mr Cook had successively let down the Labour Party, the Trades Union Congress, and the miners. Mr Cook, perhaps unintentionally, but through his hysterical condition, put in his mouth the words “that all wages would have to fall,” whereas what he had said in private conversation was “that if the industry could not pay living wages the alternative were closing down or a reduction in wages. Continuing, Mr Baldwin said that the first crucial blunder made by the miners’ leaders was the rejection of the Samuel report. The men’s loyalty and fortitude was a tragedv. It was exploited by incompetent leadership. The Prime Minister criticised tire Labour Party’s lack of courage in not pointing the error out, knowing that the men had been fooled by a slogan. The party was on the horns of a dilemma. It must either throw in its lot with extremism or cut loose from it. Extremism might win them a few industrial seats, but it would never win the country. Mr Lloyd George blamed the Eight Hours Bill for prolonging the dispute, but he asked why Mr MacDonald had not devoted a single sentence to the most important reference in his motion, namely, nationalisation. Mr Lloyd George said he could not vote for such a proposal. . Dir Winston Churchill, who was greeted with Labour hisses, said that Mr MacDonald had referred to Mr Cook’s incompetence, but he (Mr Churchill) wa6 doubtful whether incompetence was an exhaustive description of Mr Cook. He noticed, however, that Mr MacDonald had allowed Mr Cook to get as far as Moscow before ho uttered a word. If Mr Cook was incompetent, why should the Government be censured F Mr Churchill ended by deprecating the association of the trades union movement with ordinary party politics. Tlio motion of censure was rejected by 339 votes to 131. —A. and N.Z. cable.

MR COOK IN MOSCOW.

PREPARING FOR NEXT STRIKE. LONDON, Dec. 9. The Daily Telegraph’s Riga correspondent reports that alter a four hours’ speech from Mr Cook, the Trades Union Commission of tire Communist International in Moscow decided to start preparations for the next British coal strike, and to establish an international fund for this purpose without delay.—A. and N.Z. cable.