The Wilmington morning star., 1945-11-14


House of Commons are at least 40
practising journalists. There a r e
several clergymen, many local
preachers, plenty Of Protestants,
some Catholics and some Jews. We
are not likely therefore to attack
freedom OF religion or freedom OF
the press. AS to freedom of speech,
believe me as leader of our party
Tor ten years I have never lacked
candid critics in my own ranks and
have been too long in the opposi-
ton not to be strong supporter
OF freedom Of speech and freedom
OF the individual. We believe in the
freedom of the individual to live
his own life but that freedom is
conditioned by his not cramp-
ing and restricting the freedom OF
his fellow men. There is and al
ways will be scope for enterprise,
but when big business gets too pow
erful so that it becomes monopolis-
tic, we hold it is not safe to leave
it in private hands. Further in the
world today we believe, as do most
people in Britain, that one must
plan the economic activities of the
country if we are to assure the
common man fair deal. One fur
Their word. You may think that
the party consists solely of wage
earners. 1t is our pride that we
draw the majority of our members
from the ranks of wage earners
and many of our ministers have
spent long years working with their
hands in the coal mines, the fac
tory or in transportation But our
party today is drawn from all
classes of society; professional
men, business men and what are
sometimes called the privileged
classes. The old school tie can still
be seen on the government
benches. 1t is really pretty good
cross section of the population.
You may ask why do people from
the well-to-do classes belong to our
party? May I refer to my own ex-
perience - forty years ago as
young man studying law, just down
from Oxford University, I visited
for the first time my constituency,
Limehouse - very poor district
in East London. l learned from it
first hand the facts of poverty in
our great cities. I became convinc-
ed that we must build our society
on juster foundation. The result
was that I joined the Socialist
movement and eventually after
many years of striving find my
self Prime Minister of Great Bri-
tain. The reasons that impeued me
to join the labor movement are the
same that actuated so many of the
members Of my party, especially
the great number of young men
from the fighting services.
j., What is our attitude towards
foreign affairs? We believe that we
cannot make a heaven in our own
country and leave a hell outside.
We believe this not only from the
moral basis of our movement
which is based on the brotherhood
of man, without distinction of race
or creed but also from an entirely
practical standpoint. We seek to
raise the standard of life Of our
people. We can only do so by trad
ing with the rest of the world and
as good traders we wish to have
prosperous customers. The advance
in methods of production so strong
ly exemplified in the United States
has resulted in an immense out
put of goods and commodities of
all kinds. We in our turn show the
same results on a smaller scale.
Yet there are hundreds of millions
of people living in the world at a
standard Of life which is the same
as they have had for thousand
years. There is ample room in the
world for the products of the great
industrial nations like our own to
raise the general levels throughout
the world. We like you believe in
an expansive economy and we can
see no reason why the need being
SO great there should be any ri.
valry between us. We believe that
the foundations of peace must be
world prosperity and good neigh
borliness. That where science has
placed such potential abundance
before the human race we should
collaborate to take advantage of it
rather than scramble and fight for
larger individual shares which only
results in an immense increase in
poverty. We recognize that our i'm
mediate task is not easy. MANY
man in Britain returning from the
war finds his home blitzed and his
business ruined. He has to start
afresh and its tough proposition.
AS a country we are Just like
that man. We went all out to win
the war and now have to start
afresh. Like him we are facing the
future with courage and a determi-
nation to win through. We have not
stood up to our enemies for six
years to be beaten by economics.
I look forward to an era of an in.
creasing cooperation and friend.
ship between the U.S.A. and Great
Britain - not as being an exclu-
sive friendship but as a contribu-
ton to the knitting together with
all peoples through the United Ma
tons Organization in the bonds of
peace.
| In our internal policies each will