OCR Text |
Show LAW REPLIES TO THE CRITICISMS OF THE GOVERNMENT LONDON, Feb. 13. Andrew Bona r Law. chancellor of the exchequer and government, govern-ment, leader in the house of commons, replying re-plying to criticisms of the government with respect to its horn1' policy, s-aid that In IfH 7 Ihe no tional service depart men i had put into the army St'.tMo additional men and placed in employment at home 7 .",1,0'"' men and SM.O'tO women. Referring to the food production, he said that the cereals produced in Knsland in 1!'17 amounted to S.r.o,H.m tons, and, in addition, the country had produced an extra a. 000,000 tons of potatoes. England, said the chancellor, was the only country in the war where there had not been a. diminution in food produdion. A million additional acres were being put under the plow. This year oo.Oon acres more had been cultivated in Kngland nnd 4"0.oar more in Scotland and Ireland. The total stocks of wheat in (ireat Britain at the end ol December. L0 7. exceeded those at the end of December 1015, by one million ijuarters. v In 1P17 there wa.s built in Oreal FrUain I.IH.1,474 tons of shipping and 170.000 tons were obtained from abroad. The chancellor chan-cellor explained that the premier's est f-mate f-mate of ship construction was not released, re-leased, because the government had arranged ar-ranged to have a large quantitv of ton-na-ge built in America, but when America, Amer-ica, fame into t he war she preferred, as the British would have preferred, to take the tonnage herself. But the tonnage was there. Emphasizing the value of the shipping controller'e work, Mr, Eonar Law said that, in spito of the diminution in ships and in spite of the fact that Great Britain Brit-ain had loaned 1,."i00,000 gross tons for use of bor allies, in September, October and November the nation had actually import im-port ed the Kame amount as had been imported from "Fehruarv to April. It had been suggested. Kiid the rhan-el!or, rhan-el!or, that, because America had entered the wa r. Grea t Britain ought to have to spend 1' SH. America had given great help, not only to Great Britain's allies, but to j Britain herseir, for which Britain could ! not be too Errateful. But the pressure on the allies, owing lo the long continuance) ot the war, had made the burden very ! great, and be was gbd to say that this I -ountry had been aide to g.ve n less j assistance to some of her allies because of tne assistance of America. M r. Eonar Law defended the present ! system of the government, pointing out! that the war cabinet idea had been i adopted by all the belligerents. 1 le re-neated re-neated Premier Uoyd George's challenge that if the house of common d.d not I a ve confidence in the government it ought to yet a government which would carry on The work better than the present pres-ent government. But until the house did ih'.s, it wag the duty of the members to a void any criticism which would only be damaging. "I have no more interest in this prime minister than I had in the last." declared Mr. Bonar I-aw "and 1 wish to see fair play f.r lotl. Bit would rather see at the head of the government a man who rr.;ikr the mistake of being over-sanguine over-sanguine and over buoyant than a man who suL'ers from pessimism." |