31 MAY 1930, Page 1

All thisove„must remark, was an assertion rather than an explanation.

And we wonder what Mr. MacDonald's authority was for saying that there are between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 unemployed in the United States. Then Mr. MacDonald gave a curiously " canny " reason for declaring himself ready to co-operate with the other Parties in curing unemployment. It would not have been fair, he said, to ask for co-operation before the character of unemployment had entirely changed. Free Traders and Protectionists would inevit- ably and quite sincerely have disagreed. But now if the other Parties cared to co-operate with the Government " under this new national and international aspect of unemployment " he would welcome " any amount of that sort of co-operation." Finally he admitted that under democratic forms there was always a disappointing delay in setting men to work even when the money had been voted. The Government had provided £100,000,000 for public work, but less than £20,000,000 had so far been spent. The alternative to the delays of democracy was to have a Mussolini. " If you want a dictator you must say so !

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