A Crisis of This Kind had existed in this country, and it had not yet wholly passed away.
If, however, a Crisis of the Kind to which he had alluded should arrive, ministers could not pretend that they had not had full opportunity for preparing against it; for the number of petitions which had been presented took away all excuse of the evil not being foreseen.
The House must anticipate some Crisis of This Kind, or they were not fit to be legislators.
With regard to the statistics promised by the noble Lord, I do hope that in a Crisis of This Kind the not too numerous Civil Servants of the Government in India will not be vexed by being obliged to spend their time in making too elaborate returns.
they are the worst possible advisers at a Crisis of This Kind, and I earnestly hope that no appeal to the feelings of that faction will be made to dissuade us from what should appear to be the interests of Cape Colony in the way of terms.
However much their previous utterances or their previous thoughts may have made them responsible for any part of it—a subject on which I do not care to dwell, for it is not susceptible of proof—and whatever decision may be come to on that point, I cannot help but feel for the Government brought face to face with a Crisis of This Kind, because the actual legal powers of a Government in this country have hitherto been confined to keeping order and seeing that the individuals composing the community have the power as well as the right to exercise the privilege of work or the privilege of abstention from work as it may please them.
It is somewhat surprising to me that, at a national Crisis of This Kind, when expert experience is so 1038 much needed, the Government have not availed themselves more of the Noble Lord's assistance.
It is very easy to make a case and ask, "Are you going to set up raw whisky in a Crisis of This Kind as against the interests of the nation"?
It is difficult to say that one ought to have the courage of his 1640 convictions when he is voting against his convictions, but if one thinks, in a great Crisis of This Kind, that the Government ought to be supported in the conduct of the War, then one ought to carry that to its logical conclusion and give his support in minor matters even when he thinks it is mistaken.
It required a Crisis of This Kind to realise how important Indian affairs were.
Why, every great country in a Crisis of This Kind has got to adopt Conscription.
Inevitably—and again I am saying it without in the least prejudging who is responsible—a Crisis of the Kind through which we are passing, when very large numbers of people are out of work, some by the orders of their trade unions, some by the indirect result of the strike, many of them comparatively young and irresponsible, when there are necessarily very important and difficult duties placed upon the police forces available, is a time, first of all, when it is much more likely than in ordinary times that disorder can be produced, and, secondly, is a time when the demands upon the police are already necessarily so great that it would be most unfair to increase them more than can possibly be avoided.
What is the use of that in a Crisis of This Kind?
That is the position in a Crisis of This Kind.
After all, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough, in 1929 we did not anticipate any Crisis of This Kind, and surely, if there is one thing that is essential at the present day, it is that, in facing the very grave financial position of the future, both national and local, we should keep in our own hands our powers to direct financial policy, instead of committing ourselves in advance in the way that we are at the present time.
and whether the House will have a further opportunity of discussing this very important matter; and is he aware that it is not merely a question of what this country will do on the matter of the embargo, but very much a question of 1593 whether the League of Nations becomes absolutely futile in a Crisis of This Kind?
Surely the Prime Minister, even if he has no regard for the miners, even if he has no respect for them, must have some regard and respect for the general body of citizens in this country, and I submit to the House that, on the eve of a Crisis of This Kind, it ought to be the duty of the Prime Minister to be here to-day to let the country know what progress has been made in trying to settle this question, which eventually, if not settled, will land the country in an economic condition in which it has not been for many years.
It is all very well for hon. Members to shout the usual cries in a Crisis of This Kind, but this will require some justification to the people of this country, who will want to know why millions of young British lads should lose their lives - lives which might have been saved if the policy of the Government, even now, were directed to a rapprochement with Russia.
With the school medical service inadequately staffed as it has been for years was it to be expected that when a Crisis of This Kind arose we should be in a position to see that all the children were medically examined?
It is interesting to some of us on this side to notice that now we have got to a national Crisis of This Kind, Members representing the National Government find it necessary to consider the tendency of those engaged in capitalist industry to charge undue prices whenever they get the chance.
We say that only in this way can we meet a Crisis of This Kind.
My hon. Friends and I do not think it right that this House should adjourn at a time of Crisis of This Kind for such a long period as 12 days.
It is no good having a Crisis of This Kind, involving as I think the formation of a new Government, a national Government to which we can all contribute our utmost efforts, without every Member, to whatever party he may belong, being willing to sink his personality and play his part.
The big thing that is wanted in a Crisis of This Kind is a tax on property.
There is only one thing which it is right for a Member of this House to do in a Crisis of This Kind; that is, to make up his mind honestly and conscientiously on what he believes, and then to vote for it.
If the Bank is to be a branch of the executive machine, as it is to be in future, the House is entitled to know if any major Crisis of This Kind threatens.
If there had been no war, we would have had a Crisis of This Kind, though of not such a large dimension.
I would say straightaway that the prime responsibility for drawing the attention of the members of the Commonwealth and Empire, as well as the Governments of the sterling area and the United States, to an impending Crisis of This Kind rests squarely with the British Government because they are at the heart of the whole system which they are trying to build up.
I recognise that one must be honest in saying that to the people to whom one turns for support, either politically and electorally, or in an economic Crisis of This Kind.
We must realise that in a Crisis of This Kind, when we have 1½ million extra children in the schools, when we have the proportion of over-sized classes still rising - not very fast, but still rising- if we want to take immediate measures to do something about it, they have to be unconventional measures.
However we react in a Crisis of This Kind, we are bound to accept risks, and I submit to the Committee that the lesser risk is to accept the risk of lower taxes rather than to go in for a policy of higher taxes.
There is always one thing which unites the House of Commons, whatever it is that we discuss, and that is the common interest we have in the interests of this country, particularly the interests of the British people - and, in a Crisis of This Kind, the interests of British troops.
A pause, a breather or a hiatus - call it what one will - in the middle of a Crisis of This Kind would be an enormous gain, and what I have suggested would provide one.
We must also remember that when a scandal or pecuniary Crisis of Any Kind arises it is still a matter for headline news.
In any future Crisis of This Kind, I hope that there will be special consideration for the motor industry because of the particularly harsh impact of hire-purchase restrictions on an industry of this kind with very expensive products.
I think it is part of a Tory campaign, which started two years ago, to bring the Prime Minister into disrepute as far as possible, and I really think it is quite wrong to use a Crisis of the Present Kind as a political weapon against the present Government here, even though the present Government may have made mistakes.
Always when we have a financial Crisis of This Kind and when we are talking of matters such as the Basle discussion - as we were when you were not in the Chair, Mr. Speaker - we tend to take short-term measures to put things right.
May I further ask you how the rights or hon. Members are to be respected when an international Crisis of This Kind occurs and there is already a Question on the Order Paper thus preventing other hon. Members from taking alternative procedures to raise it if the hon. Member is not present in the House when his Question is called?
which would frustrate the possibility of another Crisis of This Kind, with heavy losses, from which he excluded the consequential losses?
In a Crisis of This Kind, a national fuel crisis, there ought to be fair shares for all.
We rightly become very concerned and compassionate about a sudden Crisis of This Kind, but we lose touch with the situation immediately it leaves the headlines.
Sometimes they feel unjustifiably I think, that their unions are too remote and that politicians of all parties are concerned with their problems only in a national Crisis of This Kind.
His audience were left with the impression that there was no Crisis of Any Kind.
The Middle East still contains the seeds of a potential international Crisis of the Worst Kind, because there the super-Powers are involved but not in control.
Dr. Boerma, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, has been trying to take some initiative in ensuring that international stocks of grain are built up so that they are available when a Crisis of This Kind arises.
If a Crisis of This Kind develops, it will be no use the Government trying to find some new scapegoat to explain their failures.
The hon Gentleman will be aware that sometimes one faces a Crisis of This Kind at short notice.
We need to have lean and efficient Ministries, not over-manned Ministries, but when they are faced with a Crisis of This Kind, there should be a system that can give them the reinforcement that they need to tackle the problems.
It seems that every time we have a Labour Government, we have a Crisis of This Kind in the police.
A Crisis of Any Kind brings with it difficult choices.
That was the point that I was making We are less able to deal with a Crisis of This Kind because of some very foolish decisions that were taken some years ago to reduce our effective barriers to epidemic.
If this is not a Crisis of the Kind for which such funds are intended, I do not know what is.
While I agree that holding a general election during a Crisis of This Kind would have been highly undesirable, I am less than happy to think that the Government's unwillingness to hold national elections after a set of potentially bad local election results has in any way influenced their decision to delay local elections.
When there is a Crisis of Any Kind, the relevant Government Department is besieged with dozens of letters and questions.
It is always possible, by mismanaging a Crisis of This Kind, to make it even worse.
Why, in almost every Crisis of This Kind, do the workers end up losing out and losing their jobs, but the steel bosses and bosses of other industries are allowed to gift themselves fortunes?
It will be inexcusable if, or perhaps when, we suffer another Crisis of This Kind, but there is no ready action plan available.
It is true that there has been no major humanitarian Crisis of the Kind widely predicted by some experts.
When a Crisis of This Kind affects a large number of people, it is of the utmost importance that we forge political consensus on the appropriate remedies so that the steps that are taken can be maintained with consistency over a long period.
Again, we should not fool ourselves: it is easier in the Middle East to achieve a ceasefire, difficult though that is, than to tackle the long-standing roots behind a Crisis of This Kind.
We need to ensure that we have an adequate gas supply, and during both the cold snap and the dispute between Russia and Ukraine, we monitored the situation closely - I was watching it very closely on a day-to-day basis; let the hon. Gentleman be in no doubt about that - and we were never in a position in which we had a Crisis of Any Kind.
That seems utterly wrong during a Crisis of This Kind.
The House should remember that we are at our best when we join together to face a national Crisis of This Kind, and at our worst when we seek to trivialise and to make cheap party political points.
It seems to me that whenever there is a Crisis of This Kind - I have no qualms about saying this - the United Nations fails to live up to its promise.
Would my noble friend deal with the question of the danger of the inflow of hot money, which makes us very vulnerable indeed if there is a Crisis of Any Kind?