Although it is plain to the Labour Party now that
unemployment can be ended, it was by no means plain to their Government when it was in office. Mr. Snowden, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, said—we quote from the Daily Telegraph :—" You are never going to mitigate unemployment to any extent by making work. Take, for example, the scheme for the acceleration of work. Though we realize the need for. doing this as a temporary alleviation, I hope that we are not under the illusion that we are doing something to solve unemploy- ment. We are not. As a matter of fact in a sense we are aroravating unemployment for the future." In the same speech, by the way, Mr. Snowden declared that the burden of local rates was " heavier than that of national taxation." When Mr. Baldwin lifts three-quarters of that burden from the back of productive industry Mr. Snowden pours ridicule on the whole idea. " Rates as such," he said not long ago, " are no btirden on industry at all." Mr. tom Shaw, another member of the Labour Government, said in 1924 that the real remedy for un.:, employment was " to become efficient." For our part we do believe in development schemes at a time when lalsour is standinf idle. Then is the opportunity foi putting our house ni order in preParation for better times. But if the mere encouragement of indu.strial efficiency is the point—as it was with Mr. Tom Shaw in 1924-- Mr. Baldwin can _fairly say that hig Government, by means of derating, have given industry a better chance of revival than has been given by any modern Government. • • -* *' * * -
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