Mr. Thomas had little more to say than that the
Labour Government were spending much more on the cure of unemployment than had been spent by the late Govern- ment. He showed genuine courage, however, in repeating his conviction that the only real cure for unemployment was to improve industrial equipment and organization. He would not spend a penny on unproductive work. The weakest part of his speech was his inability, or unwillingness, to give an exact estimate of how many men he expected to find work for by his special schemes. His reiterated phrase " man-years " looks very knowing but he uses it too much as a smoke-screen. Reviewing the whole debate we can find nothing nearly so important as Mr. Baldwin's expression of hope that the day will come " when we may all be able to get together on these subjects without thinking who is to get political advantage out of it."
* * * *
Previous page
