The party manifesto issued by the Conservative Party for the 2005 General Election.

2005 Conservative Party Manifesto (in .pdf format)

The party manifesto issued by the Conservative Party for the 1945 General Election.

Mr. Churchill’s Declaration of Policy to the Electors

I had hoped to preserve the Coalition Government, comprising all Parties in the State, until the end of the Japanese war, but owing to the unwillingness of the Socialist and Sinclair Liberal Parties to agree to my proposal, a General Election became inevitable, and I have formed a new National Government, consisting of the best men in all Parties who were willing to serve and some who are members of no Party at all.

It is a strong Government, containing many of those who helped me to carry the burdens of State through the darkest days and on whose counsel and executive ability I have learned to rely.

We seek the good of the whole nation, not that of one section or one faction. We believe in the living unity of the British people, which transcends class or party differences. It was this living unity which enabled us to stand like a rock against Germany when she over-ran Europe. Upon our power to retain unity, the future of this country and of the whole world largely depends.

Britain is still at war, and must not turn aside from the vast further efforts still needed to bring Japan to the same end as Germany. Even when all foreign enemies are utterly defeated, that will not be the end of our task. It will be the beginning of our further opportunity – the opportunity which we snatched out of the jaws of disaster in 1940 – to save the world from tyranny and then to play our part in its wise, helpful guidance.

Having poured out all we have to beat the Germans, holding nothing back, we must now take stock of our resources and plan how the energies of the British people can best be freed for the work that lies ahead.

This is the time for freeing energies, not stifling them. Britain’s greatness has been built on character and daring, not on docility to a State machine. At all costs we must preserve that spirit of independence and that “Right to live by no man’s leave underneath the law”.

BRITAIN AND THE WORLD

The settlement of Europe and the prosecution of the war against Japan depend on decisions of the utmost gravity, which can only be taken by resolute and experienced men. Our alliance with Soviet Russia and our intimate friendship with the U.S.A. can be maintained only if we show that our candour is matched by our strength.

We have, during the years of our history, gained the confidence of the smaller nations, because, although our power has been formidable, we have tried to use it with restraint and for high purpose, and have always respected the rights and interests of others. There is no small country which does not welcome our strength. This was plainly shown in the recent events in Greece. The irresponsible attitude towards the interests of the Greek people adopted by many sections of Left Wing opinion is, by its example, a warning not to put the conduct of foreign affairs into untried hands.

The main hope of the world is now founded upon the setting up of a World Organisation strong enough to prevent future wars of aggression whether by the weak or the strong. The United Nations have lately been assembled at San Francisco with the object of devising the necessary machinery. We have taken our full part with other Nations and have acted by natural inclination in full agreement with the United States.

There are still many difficulties to overcome. It would be wrong to pretend that so far full success has been gained. Despair would be a crime. We must persevere by any road that opens towards the uplands on which will certainly be built the calm temples of peace. Our prevailing hope is that the foundations will be laid on the indissoluble agreement of Great Britain, the United States and Soviet Russia.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND COMMONWEALTH

We shall base the whole of our international policy on a recognition that in world affairs the Mother Country must act in the closest possible concert with all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. We shall never forget their love and steadfastness when we stood alone against the German Terror. We, too, have done our best for them.

The prowess of the Indian Army must not be overlooked in the framing of plans for granting India a fuller opportunity to achieve Dominion Status We should remember those friends who stood by us in our hour of peril, and should be ever mindful of our obligations towards minorities and the Indian States.

The arrangements made in war for constant mutual consultation with the Dominions and India on all matters of joint interest must be perfected in peace. In particular, the whole subject of Imperial defence must be reviewed in relation to our world responsibilities and to modern weapons. Mutually convenient arrangements must be made to foster Imperial trade.

Movement of men and women within the Empire must be made easier. A two-way traffic should grow. Those who wish to change their homes should be enabled to carry their national insurance rights with them wherever they go. Imperial ties should be knit together by closer personal contact and understanding.

Our record in colonial government is unsurpassed. Our responsibility to the Colonies is to lead them forward to self-governing institutions; to help them to raise their standards of life by agricultural advance, the application of science and the building up of local industries; to improve conditions of labour and of housing, to spread education, to stamp out disease and to sustain health, vigour and happiness. The policy laid down in the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts must be keenly pressed forward. The resources of the Empire need to be developed for the benefit of all its many peoples.

DEFENCE

During a whole year of this great war Britain bore the burden of the struggle alone. She must not lose her position in world affairs now that the war in Europe is won. She cannot afford to break and squander the splendid organisms of defence, Naval, Army and Air, which she has with so much effort brought into existence. Above all the nucleus and special elements of command and research must be kept in the highest position. The three Services must be duly balanced in order to meet all the needs of new weapons and new times. It will not be possible, until a new Parliament has been assembled, to shape in detail the naval, military and air forces under conditions of what we hope will be a lasting peace. There will, first of all, be a prolonged occupation of Germany. We have immediately to relieve many of those who have borne the brunt and long burden of the battle by others who have not, so far, had the honour to go to the front.

I am in agreement with Mr. Bevin and other Leaders of the Socialist Party that, until the end of the Japanese War and, I hope, until the World Security Organization has become a reality, all citizens under a democratic government should bear responsibility for defending their Country and its Cause. By a system of national service according to their various aptitudes, our young men must be trained to play their part if danger calls. Only a Britain that is strong and ready to fight in defence of Freedom will count in the high councils of the world and thus safeguard coming generations against the immeasurable horrors of another war.

FOUR YEARS’ PLAN

More than two years ago I made a broadcast to the nation in which I sketched a four years’ plan which would cover five or six large measures of a practical character, which must all have been the subject of prolonged, careful and energetic preparation beforehand, and which fitted together into a general scheme.

This plan has now been shaped, and we present it to the country for their approval. Already a beginning has been made in carrying it out, and the Education Act for which our new Minister of Labour is greatly respected is already the law of the land.

BACK FROM THE WAR

We welcome the opportunity of fulfilling all obligations of Service men and women. The financial engagements, the provision of opportunities for training for careers, and, above all, the plans for treatment and rehabilitation of the disabled will be our duty and our aim.

The broad and properly considered lines of the demobilisation proposals, based on age and length of service, which Mr. Bevin has elaborated with much wisdom, will be adhered to, and releases will be made as quickly as the condition of the tormented world permits.

WORK

In the White Paper presented to Parliament by the late administration are sound plans for avoiding the disastrous slumps and booms from which we used to suffer, but which all are united in being determined to avoid in the future.

The Government accepts as one of its primary aims and responsibilities the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment.

Unless there is steady and ample work, there will not be the happiness, the confidence, or the material resources in the country on which we can all build together the kind of Britain that we want to see.

To find plenty of work with individual liberty to choose one’s job, free enterprise must be given the chance and the encouragement to plan ahead. Confidence in sound government – mutual co-operation between industry and the State, rather than control by the State – a lightening of the burdens of excessive taxation – these are the first essentials.

HOMES

In the first years of peace, the provision of homes will be the greatest domestic task.

An all-out housing policy will not only make a tremendous contribution to family life, but also to steady employment and to national health. All our energy must be thrown into it. Local authorities and private enterprise must both be given the fullest encouragement to get on with the job.

Prices of materials must be controlled as long as supplies are short. Even so, building costs will be high at first. They must be brought down as rapidly as possible. Subsidies will be necessary for local authorities and for private enterprise alike.

We must add to our building labour force as quickly as we can. The strength of the industry was 1,000,000 men before the war. Now it is down to under 400,000. We have already made our plans to expand it as quickly as possible up to and beyond its pre-war strength.

In blitzed areas the repair of war-damaged houses and the rebuilding of those destroyed will be given high priority. In the first two years, as the labour force grows, we intend to build at least 220,000 permanent new houses and have a further 80,000 under way. We hope to increase this still further, but do not intend to make promises we may not be able to fulfil. As the result of intensive research work that has been carried out by many enterprising firms, a number of new types of factory-made permanent houses and housing equipment is being developed. (The erection of these makes a smaller demand on our scarce building labour than the traditional types.) These will be put into large-scale production with the same energy as was shown in munitions. We must supplement this with at least 150,000 well-equipped temporary houses that can be put up quickly. Our target is 200,000.

So long as there is a serious shortage of houses, rent control must continue on houses controlled at present. The establishment of Tribunals throughout the country to fix fair rents as between landlord and tenant (as recommended by the Ridley Committee) seems to provide the best solution of a long-standing problem.

The rebuilding of badly bombed areas, the general attack on the housing problem and the redistribution of industry demand plans for the use of land which will take into account the needs of each locality and the opportunities offered by national resources. The Government will press forward with the main lines of policy laid down in the Town and Country Planning Acts, including the acquisition of land required in connection with the restoration of blitzed areas on the basis of the 1939 value.

We shall bring forward in the new Parliament proposals for improving the law with regard to compensation and betterment, so as to secure for the future the best use of land in the public interest, including proper reservation of open spaces and the best location of industry and housing.

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

We must produce a great deal more food than we did before the war, because food is scarce in the world to-day, and in any case we shall not be able to buy as much imported food as we did.

A healthy and well-balanced agriculture is an essential element in our national life. British agriculture will be maintained in a condition to enable the efficient producer to obtain a reasonable return on the enterprise and the capital invested, and to enable wages to be paid to the worker sufficient to secure him a proper standard of living.

We must maintain the fertility of the soil; we must be skilful in the use and management of our land for the production of the foodstuffs which it is best fitted to provide, and which are most required to satisfy the nutritional needs of our people.

We need Imperial co-operation, leading to international co-operation, in the orderly production and marketing of food; and within this country we shall have improved systems of marketing of home products and such other arrangements as may be necessary to maintain stability and avoid the evils of recurring scarcity and gluts. For this purpose each product will be treated on its own merits.

Our policy will be one of stable markets and prices. In return for this all occupiers and owners of agricultural land must maintain a reasonable standard of good husbandry and estate management.

Within these principles the best results will be obtained by restoring the greatest measure of freedom possible, and allowing full scope for each farmer to make the best use of his land.

The war-time directions and controls will be progressively reduced as our food situation improves and consequently the functions of the County Agricultural Executive Committees will progressively be limited to that of affording leadership, help and advice.

Educational facilities will be developed as fast as the necessary teaching staff and buildings can be made available. The extension of agricultural research will continue. The best scientific advice will be made available to all farmers by the new advisory service.

Provision of smallholdings will be resumed as soon as labour and materials can be spared for men who have gained experience as agricultural workers, and allotments will be encouraged by every reasonable means.

The new Forestry Policy will result in far-reaching and permanent programmes of afforestation. We must take care of our big trees, and make provision for their replacement.

Better housing in country districts is a most urgent need. Large numbers of new cottages in rural areas will be provided, as well as greater facilities for bringing existing cottages and farms up to date. A wide extension of electricity supply, water and sanitation will be undertaken for villages, cottages and farms. No less necessary are better communications, better health services and better social facilities for all who live and work in the countryside.

A policy on these lines will secure a prosperous agriculture. That in its turn will bring benefits to town and country alike, and help to provide our people with good food for a steadily improving diet.

Our fishing industry must be restored with intense exertions and at the utmost speed. In war the fishermen have been out after sterner catches, and once again the nation has been well served in danger by their skill and courage. We must rebuild the industry and make it a way of life which will give attractive employment to the fine men it breeds. What we want now is fish, and this must be tackled by every conceivable method.

NATIONAL INSURANCE

National well-being is founded on good employment, good housing and good health. But there always remain those personal hazards of fortune, such as illness, accident or toss of a job, or industrial injury, which may leave the individual and his family unexpectedly in distress. In addition, old age, death and child-birth throw heavy burdens upon the family income.

One of our most important tasks will be to pass into law and bring into action as soon as we can a nation-wide and compulsory scheme of National Insurance based on the plan announced by the Government of all Parties in 1944.

In return for a single consolidated contribution there will be new and increased benefits, amongst which is to be an old age or retirement pension of 20/- for single people and 35/- for married couples. Family allowances are one part of the great scheme, and the arrangements made will ensure that men and women serving in the Forces and those disabled will benefit equally with other classes in the community.

The new Ministry of National Insurance has been set up to prepare, administer and control the whole of this great legislation. So massive and complex a task can only be discharged by a large and highly-trained staff, which has to be assembled and accommodated. The specialised experience of the Approved Societies will therefore be drawn upon, and their employees, especially those who have served at the front, must have due consideration.

The scheme will not justify itself to the public unless the service given to them in return for their contributions combines human understanding with efficiency. There must be no queuing up for sickness benefits by those who are entitled to them. The same standard of

intimacy in personal relationships must be maintained as formerly.

HEALTH

The health services of the country will be made available to all citizens. Everyone will contribute to the cost, and no one will be denied the attention, the treatment or the appliances he requires because he cannot afford them.

We propose to create a comprehensive health service covering the whole range of medical treatment from the general practitioner to the specialist, and from the hospital to convalescence and rehabilitation; and to introduce legislation for this purpose in the new Parliament.

The success of the service will depend on the skill and initiative of doctors, dentists, nurses and other professional people, and in its designing and operation there will be full scope for all the guidance they can give. Wide play must be given to the preferences and enterprise of individuals. Nothing will be done to destroy the close personal relationship between doctor and patient, nor to restrict the patient’s free choice of doctor.

The whole service must be so designed that in each area its growth is helped and guided by the influence of a university. Through such a service the medical and allied professions will be enabled to serve the whole nation more effectively than they have yet been able to do. At the same time Medicine will be left free to develop along its own lines, and to achieve preventive as well as curative triumphs. Liberty is an essential condition of scientific progress.

The voluntary hospitals which have led the way in the development of hospital technique will remain free. They will play their part in the new service in friendly partnership with local authority hospitals.

Motherhood must be our special care. There must be a large increase of maternity beds and convalescent homes, and they must be provided in the right places. Mothers must be relieved of onerous duties which at such times so easily cause lasting injury to their health. The National Insurance Scheme will make financial provision for these needs. All proper arrangements, both voluntary and State-aided, must be made for the care of other young children in the family, in order that the energies of the male breadwinner or the kindness of neighbours and relations, which nevertheless must be the mainspring, should not be unduly burdened. Nursery schools and nurseries such as have grown up during the war should be encouraged. On the birth, the proper feeding and the healthy upbringing of a substantially increased number of children, depends the life of Britain and her enduring glory.

EDUCATION

The Education Act set forth in the “Four Years’ Plan” has already been piloted through Parliament by Mr. Butler. Our task in the coming years will be to remodel our educational system according to the new law, and a vigorous drive will be needed to supply the teachers and the buildings necessary.

Our object is to provide education which will not produce a standardised or utility child, useful only as a cog in a nationalised and bureaucratic machine, but will enable the child to develop his or her responsible place, first n the world of school, and then as a citizen. Many parents will be able to choose the school they like and to play their part with the educational authorities in the physical and spiritual well-being of their children.

Our aim must be to produce the good citizen of tomorrow. Our primary schools call for much encouragement and improvement. Secondary Education for all will have no meaning unless variety, practical training and, above all, quality of standards convince parents that the extra schooling for their children is worth while. Technical education, at all levels, must be greatly extended and improved.

No system of education can be complete unless it heightens what is splendid and glorious in life and art. Art, science and learning are the means by which the life of the whole people can be beautified and enriched.

OVERSEAS TRADE

Britain relies upon overseas trade for maintaining her people’s standard of living. Industry and employment are bound to depend largely on imported raw materials. Even in wartime we have to draw one-third of our food from abroad. Britain’s investments overseas and our shipping, which helped to pay for these imports before the war, have been largely sacrificed. In striving for others we have become a debtor nation.

Therefore it is only by greatly increasing our exports and services that we can buy the imports we require, and thus increase the whole vast volume of our internal trade. The exchange of goods and services with Empire countries is our most fertile and natural market.

We must do all we can in various ways to promote international trade, but of course we cannot give up our right to safeguard our balance of payments by whatever means are necessary: in the end the way to sell enough of our exports abroad, both directly and by roundabout trade, is to take full advantage of the great variety of British industry, the inventiveness of British scientists and technicians, the enterprise and experience of British manufacturers and merchants, and the skill of British workpeople and the renowned trustworthiness of their output.

All possible encouragement will be given to the enterprise of individuals and firms to take advantage of export opportunities of all kinds, and nothing must be done to paralyse the spirit of adventure.

INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY

The more efficient British industry is and the fuller the use it makes of modern methods and materials, the higher will be the standard of well-being that is possible for our people. We will stimulate scientific research in industry and in the universities, and encourage the scrapping of obsolete plant and methods in every possible way. Taxation must not bear unduly upon new machinery and enterprise.

All that we long to achieve in making good the wartime shortage depends on attaining the highest possible levels of peacetime production as fast as we can. We shall fail in that if the British people, instead of fixing their eyes on production, are led off at this moment into academic and spiteful controversies about Socialism.

We should examine the conditions and the vital needs of every industry on its own merits. We believe in variety, not in standardised and identical structure, still less in bureaucratic torpor. We will not allow drastic changes of ownership to be forced upon industries on no evidence except a political theory, and with no practical regard to the results they may bring. To us the tests will always be – what will conduce most to efficiency, and what will render the greatest service to the community. This is the policy we shall apply, whether it be coal, cotton or the heavy industries.

As against the advocates of State ownership and control, we stand for the fullest opportunity for go and push in all ranks throughout the whole nation. This quality is part of the genius of the British people, who mean to be free to use their own judgment and never intend to be State serfs, nor always to wait for official orders before they can act.

MONOPOLIES

We must guard against abuses to which monopolies may give rise.

It is vital that there should be effective protection of the consumers’ interests and of the independent business, whether small or large, against any such abuse. Nationalisation involves a State monopoly, with no proper protection for anyone against monopoly power. Neither that nor any other form of unfettered monopoly should be allowed to exist in Britain. The right remedy against harmful restrictive practices is to set up an independent tribunal before which charges of monopoly abuse can be laid. Its work and reports should be public, so that any necessary action in restraint of abuse may be taken by Parliament or otherwise.

CONTROLS

We stand for the removal of controls as quickly as the need for them disappears. Control of labour, of materials and of prices, is necessary in war, when we have to give up much of our freedom in order to make sure that the war machine gets all that it requires. Some of these controls will continue to be needed until normal times return. As long as shortage of food remains, rationing must obviously be accepted: the dangers of inflation also must be guarded against.

As long as any wartime controls have to be retained, they must be made subject to strict Parliamentary scrutiny and sanction. We must watch the interest of the consumer always. Controls, originally imposed on his behalf, tend to bind him down and injure him as soon as circumstances change.

We intend to guard the people of this country against those who, under guise of war necessity, would like to impose upon Britain for their own purposes a permanent system of bureaucratic control, reeking of totalitarianism.

THE SMALL MAN IN BUSINESS

The small man in trade or industry, who adventures all he has in the effort to make a success of the business he undertakes, must be given every chance to make good. His independence of spirit is one of the essential elements that made up the life of a free society. Many thousands of such men have been hit bitterly hard by war. Other men may have jobs to go back to, but the businesses of some of these men are gone, or hanging by a thread.

It will be a definite point in our policy to make certain that the problems of the small man receive special attention. In particular, the returning Service men or women who obtained their livelihood in this way must be given every possible chance to re-establish themselves.

FUEL AND POWER

Coal is owned by the State, and is a wasting asset. The industry, taken by and large, as the Reid Report shows, has fallen behind some of its competitors overseas.

The industrial activities of this country are principally founded on coal. Adequate supplies, as cheap as possible, must be available for our homes, for our factories and for export. We cannot afford to lose a coal export trade.

Wartime measures are not suited to peacetime conditions. A new, practical start is needed. The position cannot be remedied by mere change of ownership of the collieries. That offers no solution.

A central authority, appointed by the Minister of Fuel and subject to his general direction, will be set up, to insist that the necessary measures are taken and to provide such help and guidance as is useful.

These measures centre upon the proper development and efficient conduct of operations in each coalfield according to the best modern practice. In so far as grouping or amalgamating collieries is necessary for this object, it will be carried through, voluntarily if possible, but otherwise by compulsion.

At the same time in this diversified industry where conditions vary widely, there are often to be found highly efficient undertakings which are sometimes not large: in such cases amalgamation will only be proposed if there are clear advantages to the nation and the industry; we do not propose amalgamation for amalgamation’s sake.

The making and carrying out of these plans will be undertaken by the industry itself. The duty of the central authority will be to satisfy itself that the scope and effect of the plans conform to national requirements, and it will have powers of enforcement in reserve.

This policy will preserve the incentives of free enterprise and safeguard the industry from the dead hand of State ownership or political interference in day-to-day management. It will also provide the necessary sanctions for making sure that the essential improvements recommended in the Reid Report are carried through.

At the same time, increased efficiency must be stimulated in the use and handling of coal and its principal products, electricity and gas. There is room for much greater coordination of the local distribution of these services. Opportunities to increase the nation’s resources by harnessing water power also will be scientifically investigated and followed up.

TRANSPORT

Transport over land and over sea will have to remain under wartime control for a time. We have still to work out detailed plans to meet the new needs of peace. Road and rail, canals and coast-wise shipping, will be encouraged and helped to bring to a successful conclusion plans already under discussion for a transport system of the highest efficiency, in which each method would play its appropriate part, with freedom for the public to choose which one to use, and with protection against any risk of monopoly charges.

New proposals for Civil Aviation, based broadly on the White Paper of 1945, will be adopted and speedily brought into operation.

This policy will ensure the full development of our Commonwealth and Empire services on the partnership lines already established; there will be co-operation with foreign governments on all overseas services linking our country and theirs; we shall at the same time expand our air services within the United Kingdom, aiming at the most complete network of services in and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We shall see to it that air transport undertakings are free to manage the services for which they are responsible and that there shall be ample opportunity for development, and for newcomers to enter the lists in the United Kingdom. It is, of course, our intention that British Air Lines shall use British aircraft and we are satisfied that those aircraft in peace as in war will be second to none.

We must ensure the maintenance of a large, modern and highly efficient Merchant Navy. This country must never forget the debt she owes to her merchant seamen. The men who sailed the convoys to Britain, to Malta, to Russia and all over the world must be sure of steady employment, ships designed to give them good living conditions, good standards of food, and proper provision for their welfare.

There will shortly be a large world surplus of wartime shipping and we shall enter into international consultations for its orderly disposal and for avoiding competitive subsidies after the war.

MONEY

Our war budget has been rendered possible only by the severest taxation pressing heavily on everybody, by borrowing on a vast scale to meet the passing crisis, by huge Lend-Lease supplies from the United States and by generous gifts from Canada and elsewhere. All this cannot go on.

The State has no resources of its own. It can only spend what it takes from the people in taxes or borrowing. Britain is now a nation of taxpayers. Its record of providing more than half of the national expenditure during the last years of the war from taxation is unsurpassed. The willingness of this generation to bear their fair share of sacrifices must, though we hope for relief, be continued. Our future needs for the war against Japan, for winding up the German war, and the plans for social progress which we are determined to carry out, cause and require a much higher rate of national expenditure than before the war.

This burden must be borne by all citizens as taxpayers. There is no easy way of one section getting great benefits from the State at the expense of another. The nation can have the services it is prepared to pay for. Where all benefit, all will have to contribute. The revenue is not created by waving a magic wand. It is drawn from the fruits of the nation’s industry, agriculture and commerce. It is won by work and paid in taxes. The present level of taxation drastically restricts the ability of the ordinary citizen to satisfy his personal desires. It is discouraging to his enterprise and his efforts to better himself by doing the bit extra, for so large a part of anything he gains to be removed by the tax-collector.

It will be our aim and purpose to make an early reduction in taxation in a way that will stimulate energy and permit free individual choice. The Government will re-examine the whole structure of taxation in relation to the level at which expenditure will stand after the war, in order to lighten the burden where it presses most, and simplify the tax system.

We will not permit any monkeying with the people’s savings. Our desire is to see property widely spread, and we rejoice that the savings movement, which must go on, has now made almost everyone a property-owner. An object of our financial policy is to keep prices from rising, and make sure that savers do not see the purchasing-power of their savings dwindle.

On a basis of high employment, initiative and hard work on the part of everyone, we can achieve our great Four Years’ programme. It is well worth achieving.

OUR PURPOSE

Ours is a great nation and never in its history has it stood in higher repute in the world than today. Its greatness rests not on its material wealth, for that has been poured out in full measure, nor upon its armed might, which other nations surpass. It has its roots in the character, the ability, and the independence of our people and the magic of this wonderful island. British virtues have been developed under the free institutions which our fathers and forefathers struggled through the centuries to win and to keep. We of this generation are trustees for posterity, and the duty lies upon us to hand down to our children unimpaired the unique heritage that was bequeathed to us.

This is a country built on family life. War and separation have strengthened, not impaired, the love of home. The children must always come first. The Education Act, school meals, family allowances, all show that Parliament is realising that. Family life is a precious asset to be defended at all costs.

We are dedicated to the purpose of helping to rebuild Britain on the sure foundations on which her greatness rests. In recent generations, enormous material progress has been made. That progress must be extended and accelerated not by subordinating the individual to the authority of the State, but by providing the conditions in which no one shall be precluded by poverty, ignorance, insecurity, or the selfishness of others from making the best of the gifts with which Providence has endowed him.

Our programme is not based upon unproved theories or fine phrases, but upon principles that have been tested anew in the fires of war and not found wanting. We commend it to the country not as offering an easy road to the nation’s goal but because, while safeguarding our ancient liberties, it tackles practical problems in a practical way.

The manifesto issued by the Conservative Party for the 1950 General Election.

This is the Road:
The Conservative and Unionist Party’s Policy

As Leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party I submit this manifesto of our beliefs and policy to the British electors.

All who cherish the cause of our country at this fateful moment must cast their vote after hard and long thought, and make sure they cast it effectively.

I commend to your attention with confidence this outline of our resolves and desires should we be called upon to assume the responsibilities of Government.

19 January, 1950
Winston S. Churchill

The policy of the Conservative Party, expressed in “The Right Road for Britain” is to restore to our country her economic independence and to our citizens their full personal freedom and power of initiative. Unless Britain can hold her place in the world, she cannot make her full contribution to the preservation of peace, and peace is our supreme purpose. Britain, wisely led, can bring together the Commonwealth and Empire, Western Europe and the Atlantic Powers into a partnership dedicated to the cause of saving world peace and of preserving democratic freedom and the rule of law.

PRESENT DANGERS

We can only import the food and raw materials on which we depend by paying for them in goods, services or cash. For the first few years after the war every country wanted all that Britain could make, almost regardless of price. That time is passing. Now Britain can sell abroad only if her goods are high in quality and competitive in price.

Since 1945, Britain has received in gifts and loans from the United States and the nations of the Commonwealth the vast sum of nearly £2,000 millions. But Marshall aid will end by 1952. From that time forth we must pay for all we buy from overseas or suffer the consequences in low standards of living and high unemployment.

The duty of the Government from their first day in office was to husband the national resources, to evoke the greatest efforts from all, to give every chance to enterprise and inventiveness and above all, not needlessly to divide the nation.

THE SOCIALIST FAILURE

But the Socialists have failed in their duty. National resources have been squandered. Individual effort has been discouraged or suppressed. National unity has been deeply injured. The Government have shrunk from the realities of the situation and have not told the people the truth.

THE SOCIALIST DECEPTION

From the time they acquired power they pretended that their policy was bringing the prosperity they had promised. They tried to make out that before they got a majority the whole history of Great Britain, so long admired and envied throughout the world, was dark and dismal. They spread the tale that social welfare is something to be had from the State free, gratis and for nothing. They have put more money into circulation, but it has bought less and less. The value of every pound earned or saved or paid in pensions or social services has been cut by 3s. 8d. since they took office. It is not a £ but 16/4.

There is no foundation for the Socialist claim to have brought us prosperity and security. Ministers themselves have declared that but for American Aid there would have been two million people unemployed.

During these bleak years Britain has lurched from crisis to crisis and from makeshift to makeshift. Whatever temporary expedients have been used to create a false sense of well being, none has effected a permanent cure. Devaluation is not the last crisis nor have we seen the worst of it yet.

SOCIALIST MISMANAGEMENT

In 1945, the Socialists promised that their methods of planning and nationalisation would make the people of Britain masters of their economic destiny. Nothing could be more untrue. Every forecast has proved grossly over-optimistic. Every crisis has caught them unawares. The Fuel Crisis cost the country £200 millions and the Convertibility Crisis as much. Ambitious plans have gone awry. Nearly thirty million pounds have already been muddled away on the Groundnuts Scheme. Railway engines were converted to burn oil because coal was scarce and then converted back again because oil was even scarcer. With the same labour force as before the war little more than half as many houses are being built. Despite the promise of the Minister of Health that “when the next Election occurs there will be no housing problem in Great Britain for the working class”, waiting lists for council houses in many districts are longer now than they were five years ago.

Socialism has imposed a crushing burden of taxation amounting to eight shillings of every pound earned in this country. Enterprise and extra effort have been stifled. Success has been penalised. Thrift and savings have been discouraged. A vote for Socialism is a vote to continue the policy which has endangered our economic and present independence both as a nation and as men and women.

THE CONSERVATIVES AND YOUR FUTURE

A complete change in the spirit of administration is needed. Only the Conservative Party can make this change. The Socialist Government are temporising with grave economic perils. Britain’s difficulties will not be resolved by some trick of organisation, nor will prosperity come as a gift from government. The nation will enjoy in benefit only as much as it is prepared to create by its own effort. With a high spirit, through great endeavours, relying on our native skill, every man and woman must bend their energies to a new wave of national impulse. Only thus can the British people save themselves now and win lasting prosperity for the future. In the last four years the British people have not been shown the way nor given a proper chance to find it. A Conservative Government will guide them along the right road.

The Economic Crisis

EMPIRE CONFERENCE

Britain can resolve her economic difficulties not only by reviving her native strength but by fortifying every link with the nations of our Empire and Commonwealth.

An Imperial Economic Conference should consider the whole problem of strengthening the resources of the Empire in order to close the dollar gap. This will speed the development of raw materials and foodstuffs. It will promote greater exports of raw materials and manufactured goods to dollar countries. It will seek to encourage the investment of American as well as British capital in the Empire. It will try to reach a permanent settlement of the debts owed by Commonwealth nations to one another, and especially the war-time debts incurred by Britain for defending India and Egypt.

We must rebuild the reserves of the sterling area, of which we are the principal guardians and with our partners enlarge the area of trade over which free exchange prevails.

ENTERPRISE

Britain’s own contribution must take the form of larger and more efficient production at lower prices.

Conservatives believe in enterprise. We believe that the quality of daring was never more needed than today. It deserves practical encouragement wherever it is to be found. Only by its exercise can mass unemployment be averted and prosperity attained.

The true value of money must be honestly maintained. The crushing burden of public expenditure must be drastically reduced. Stronger effort, more enterprise and inventiveness, and greater thrift can only be encouraged by lower taxes.

GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE

In order to lower taxes and the high cost of living we must cut down Government spending. We are convinced that substantial savings are necessary and possible. If a tenth or even a twentieth of our enormous national expenditure of three thousand three hundred millions a year were saved, our whole financial position would be relieved, and immediate reductions in taxation could be shared by all. We do not ignore the unpopularity of any kind of saving and the misrepresentation to which it will be subjected, but the task must be faced, and we shall not shirk it.

Cost of Defence

An immediate survey of the whole seven hundred and fifty millions of defence expenditure is imperative.

Cost of Food

The time has come to restore the business of food purchase to the experienced traders in food and to end direct Government buying. If the experience of other countries is any guide, this change will certainly effect some reduction in the cost of our food. Meanwhile the production of food is rising in many lands, and thus it should be possible to reduce the number of commodities for which rationing remains necessary. Our Conservative policy is clear: to reduce the cost to the taxpayer by the wise buying of food.

The present system of food subsidies is open to the objection that it is indiscriminate in its incidence. Those who need it least get as much as those who need it most. As Mr. Eden said in the House of Commons, our principle should be “that the strong should help the weak and we should not try to aid everybody indiscriminately”.

In any approach to the problem of food subsidies, made necessary by the urgent need to improve the purchasing power of the £, we shall be bound by this pledge. There will be no reduction which might influence the price of food without compensating increases to those most affected. These compensations will take the form, on the one hand, of larger family allowances, pensions and other social benefits, and, on the other, of reductions of taxation, direct and indirect, that will increase incentives among the masses of the people.

Waste and Extravagance

Everyone knows that there is enormous waste. There are too many Ministers and Government Departments and there is too much overlapping of functions between them. For example, the work of the Ministry of Civil Aviation should be redistributed between the Transport and other ministries so that a separate Department ceases to exist. The civilian functions of the Ministry of Supply such as state trading in metals, will cease; and others should go to the Board of Trade. The Service Departments should buy their common needs through a joint organisation under the Minister of Defence in order to achieve the most efficient and economical arrangement. Many new Commissions or Committees outside the Ministries must be reviewed to see if they are wanted. There is also plenty of scope for retrenchment – to give only a few examples – in public relations, Information Services, excessive control over local authorities, the county agricultural committees, Government travelling, etc.

In local government we favour more devolution to the boroughs and district councils to avoid the swarms of full-time organisers and supervisors like those who have sprung up in the health services. The cost of hospital administration could be reduced by new methods of financial control including better costing and more publicity for accounts.

LOWER TAXES

We regard present high taxation as a grave evil. By reductions in expenditure substantial sums will be available for reducing both direct and indirect taxation. As we have already said our aim and intention is to make sure that extra work, effort and skill on piece-rates and through overtime, instead of being penalised, shall gain their just reward. The restoration of their incentive, not only to the higher ranks of labour will give a new stimulus to every kind of production and help our export trade. The high taxation of money put to reserve in business hinders many important schemes for improving industrial efficiency. We hope to make sufficient economies to start upon reducing indirect taxation and particularly Purchase Tax on necessities and semi-necessities. Under the present system any reduction of purchase tax entails considerable losses to retailers. This we shall avoid. All reductions in taxation will encourage National Savings.

UNEMPLOYMENT

The Socialists claim that their policy has prevented mass unemployment such as followed the first World War. The conditions often were wholly different. Under the Socialist Government of 1929-1931 unemployment rose violently and reached fearful figures. With all this in our minds our war-time Coalition anxiously probed the future, and all the leading Socialist ministers, including Mr. Attlee, Mr. Herbert Morrison, Sir Stafford Cripps and Mr. Bevin, agreed with their Conservative colleagues that the world demand for goods would, for some years after the fighting stopped, make serious unemployment unlikely. However, we made far-reaching plans, based upon hard experience and new knowledge, to cope with the evil should it come. All this is upon record and was laid before Parliament in 1944. But in addition we have had nearly £2,000 millions given or loaned to us by the United States and Commonwealth countries. Do not forget that Mr. Morrison, Mr. Bevan and other leading Socialists have declared that without this aid we should have had 1½ to 2 millions unemployed in these last years instead of the present 300,000.

These are strange confessions for public men to make at a time when they are boasting that they have cured unemployment. Stranger still is the charge they make that their Conservative colleagues, with whom they agreed the policy of 1944, actually seek to provoke unemployment in order to get more work out of the wage earners. This is indeed rather shabby. We regard the maintenance of full employment as the first aim of a Conservative Government. How grave will be the consequences of the cessation of American Aid no one can forecast. But if human endeavour can avail we shall succeed.

POST-WAR CREDITS

We recognise that the repayment of post-war credits is an obligation to be met. Such large sums are however outstanding that it will be impossible to repay them all at once without risk of inflation. Meanwhile we shall consider schemes for the repayment of credits to the estates of deceased persons.

EQUAL PAY

We hope that during the life of the next Parliament the country’s financial position will improve sufficiently to enable us to proceed at an early date with the application in the Government Service of the principle of equal pay for men and women for services of equal value.

British Industry

The Conservative Party will encourage in industry the highest level of efficient production and the most effective partnership between owners, executives and operatives. To day all forms of production and distribution are hampered in a Socialist atmosphere which denies enterprise its reward while making life too easy for the laggards. Monopoly and bureaucracy should give place to competition and enterprise. All enterprises, large and small, should have a fair field.

We shall do everything to help the trade unions to serve the best interests of the nation and their members. The foundation of industrial endeavour must be good human relationships, not impersonal control from aloft and afar. For all those engaged in production we shall provide opportunity, freedom and a fair share of the proceeds, and for the consumer greater variety of choice at prices to suit his pocket.

POWER SHOULD BE MORE DECENTRALISED

On every hand, in local as well as in national affairs, power is being increasingly centred in the Government. The State has obtruded heavily on the individual, his home and his pocket. Almost every incident of daily life is bound by controls which Parliament has had little chance to debate. These controls shelter the sluggish from failure while holding back the adventurous from success. They permit easy profits without insisting on efficiency. They create monopoly and deprive the consumer of the correction of competition.

Britain already knows to her cost that the state monopolies created by nationalisation are rigid, awkward, wasteful and inefficient. Large losses have been made. Monopoly powers are being used to force higher prices on the consumers, who have no effective redress. Responsible initiative is crushed by centralised authority. Frustration and cynicism prevail among the staffs. The power of trade unions to protect their members is being undermined and the freedom of choice of consumer and worker alike is being narrowed. If nationalisation is extended, the creeping paralysis of state monopoly will spread over ever wider sections of industry until the Socialists have carried out their declared aim to nationalise all the means of production, distribution and exchange.

NATIONALISATION

We shall bring Nationalisation to a full stop here and now. Thereby we shall save all those industries, such as cement, sugar, meat distribution, chemicals, water and insurance which are now under threat by the Socialists.

We shall repeal the Iron and Steel Act before it can come into force. Steel will remain under free enterprise, but its policy on prices and development will be supervised as in recent years by a Board representative of Government, management, labour and consumers.

The nationalisation of omnibuses and tramways will be halted. Wherever possible those already nationalised will be offered to their former owners, whether private or municipal. We shall also be prepared to sell back to free enterprise those sections of the road haulage industry which have been nationalised, and to restore the former system of A and B licences. The limitation of distance on private road hauliers will be progressively eliminated. The present freedom of C licences will remain untouched.

As wide a measure of free enterprise as possible should be restored to Civil Aviation. We shall review the structure and character of the Airways Corporations with that in mind.

We shall drastically reorganise the Coal Industry as a public undertaking by restricting the duties of the National Board and by giving autonomy to the Area Boards. By decentralising the work of the National Board we shall give greater responsibility to the men on the spot and revive local loyalties and enthusiasm. “British Railways” should be re-organised into a number of regional railway systems each with its own pride of identity and each administered by its own Board of Direction whose members must have varied practical experience of serving public needs. We shall hold ourselves free to decide the future of the Gas and Electricity Boards when we have had more experience of their working.

The consumer must be given greater protection in the industries remaining nationalised. This can be done by a wider use of independent price tribunals, by stricter Parliamentary control of accounts, by finding time for a periodic review of each industry by Parliament and by subjecting them to examination by the Monopolies Commission or some similar body. Ministers’ powers to make appointments will be defined and their powers to give directions will be clarified. Every nationalised undertaking will observe the Workers’ Charter.

Our special proposals for nationalised undertakings in Scotland are set out later.

CONTROLS

The time has come when controls must be reduced to the minimum necessary as the supply situation improves. Controlled prices should be based on the costs of the more efficient firms and the system of allocating materials put on an up-to-date basis. This will make it easier for new firms to start.

Almost all our neighbours in Europe have ended food, and indeed petrol, rationing. As soon as we have been able to ensure that the prime necessities of life are within the reach of every family and each individual, we shall abolish the existing rationing system.

MONOPOLY

Through the powers of the Monopoly and Restrictive Practices Act we shall see that the public interest is protected and that prices are not kept up either by inefficiency or by combinations in restraint of trade. We shall bring to the front the question of restrictive labour practices which the National Joint Advisory Committee has had under consideration.

BULK PURCHASE

It will be our policy to end bulk buying by the State. But we shall honour existing contracts and be prepared, where necessary, to give suitable guarantees for producers in Empire and Commonwealth countries. Wherever conditions permit, we shall reopen the commodity markets which can be a valuable source of foreign currency. The Liverpool Cotton Exchange will be reopened.

TRADE UNIONS

We have held the views, from the days of Disraeli, that the Trade Union movement is essential to the proper working of our economy and of our industrial life. Conservatives should not hesitate to join Trade Unions as so many of our Party have already done, and to play their full part in their union affairs. As soon as possible we wish the Trade Unions to regain their function of obtaining for their members a full share of increasing productivity through free collective bargaining. We shall consult with all engaged in industry on how to make more effective the machinery for consultation between industry and the Government.

We shall abolish the direction of labour.

We shall consult with the Unions upon a friendly and final settlement of the questions of contracting out and compulsory unionism, on both of which Conservatives have strong convictions of principle, and on any other matters that the Unions may wish to raise.

WORKERS’ CHARTER

The detailed application of a Workers’ Charter designed to give security, incentive and status will be discussed with the Trade Unions and the employers. It is our intention to bring it into effect as early as possible in industry and to extend it to agriculture wherever practicable. Legislation will provide every employee with a legal right to a written contract of service in which, if both parties agree, length of notice may be adjusted to length of service.

The Workers’ Charter will lay down the principle that extra effort should always bring extra reward and that promotion shall be by merit. It will encourage schemes of training, both technical and general, for all who may benefit from them. It advocates the widest possible extension, on a voluntary basis, of joint consultation on subjects other than wages and conditions of work, which are already covered by collective bargaining, and will favour schemes of co-partnership and profit-sharing. The main body of the Charter will not be embodied in legislation but will be drawn up as a Code of Conduct and submitted to Parliament for debate and adoption. We shall ensure that this Code is strictly applied in all undertakings under Government control. After due notice has been given only those employers who observe the Code will obtain public contracts.

Food and Agriculture

Home food production must have an assured place in the national economy. We must look to the home farmer and market gardener for a greater quantity and more variety in the nation’s food and they will have first place in the home market. We are opposed to the nationalisation of the land and farming by the State.

British agriculture is expected to provide, on a long-term basis, an efficient output at least half as large again as that of pre-war. It should concentrate more than at present on live stock and so help to increase the meat ration.

We shall encourage the fishing industry to set up a White Fish Marketing Board. Renewed efforts will be made to secure an international agreement to stop serious over-fishing.

For farm produce we shall continue the system, which we introduced during the war, of guaranteed prices based upon an annual price review. Wool should be given a guaranteed price and oats the same treatment as other guaranteed products.

Farmers and merchants must be encouraged to work together through Marketing Boards and voluntary associations, while the consumer is protected by the Monopolies Commission and special committees of investigation. Loans to aid in financing new production will be made available through co-operative associations and Marketing Boards. British horticulture must be safeguarded against destructive imports. Small growers in the industry should be encouraged to develop grading and co-operative buying and selling organisations.

We shall vigorously implement the Hill Farming Act and give appropriate incentives to farmers of marginal land.

The duties of the County Committees should be re-examined and their administration and excessive paper work simplified. Ministers should seek their advice on every problem of production and the use of agricultural land. The Advisory Service must give impartial advice and inspire the trust of farmers. It must be freed from bureaucracy and enabled to attract the best advisers. If necessary, the Universities should be asked to help.

The Ministries of Agriculture and Food must be brought closer together and the present overlapping and conflict eliminated, with a view to their eventual amalgamation. The supply of food from home and overseas supplies must be kept under constant review by a revived Market Supply Committee.

Nationalisation will not reduce the costs of food. Past experience shows that it will increase them. We shall make it our business to see that the housewife gets her food through the cheapest and most efficient channels and that she has first chance of any extra supplies that can be got.

RURAL CONDITIONS

Houses for the agricultural population must have the necessary priority and subsidies will be given to local authorities and individuals alike. Reconditioning grants will be made available for all rural cottages. As supplies of materials improve, reconditioning will be made compulsory.

Local schemes for water supplies and sewerage should be given the highest priority and administrative delays in the work should be attacked. The countryside deserves its fair share of other modern amenities such as electricity and buses.

Suitable educational facilities will be provided by retaining as many village schools as possible, by teaching rural science in all primary and secondary schools, rural and urban, and by providing adequate facilities for technical education, and grants for village halls. It has always been part of our policy to foster the smallholdings movement. We shall make suitable financial arrangements to encourage small-holders to buy farms.

LAND USE

Where land is to be chosen for building or for the use of the Fighting Services we shall see that the over-riding test between alternative sites is their capacity for agricultural production.

FORESTRY

The Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland should have full responsibility for the Forestry Commission.

Social Security

The Social Services were born of Parliaments with Conservative and Liberal majorities. They rest upon the productive effort of British industry and agriculture. The Socialists have by inflation reduced their value and compromised their future. By energetic action they can be saved and their value maintained. Britain can only enjoy the social services for which she is prepared to work.

We are determined to give a solid base of social security below which none shall fall and above which each must be encouraged to rise to the utmost limit of his ability. We shall encourage instead of penalising those who wish to create from their own efforts more security for themselves and their families. We shall foster the ancient virtue of personal thrift.

PROPERTY-OWNING DEMOCRACY

We intend to help all those who wish to own a house of their own or a small holding. A true property-owning democracy must be based upon the wide distribution of private property, not upon its absorption in the State machine.

HOUSING

Upon good housing depends the health and happiness of every family. Before the war, under free enterprise with a Conservative government, the nation was getting a thousand new houses every day. The latest Socialist target is five hundred. In fact, the cuts caused by the devaluation of the pound have now reduced the Housing Programme to a figure which will result in 30,000 fewer houses a year than were built in 1931 at the height of the world economic crisis. Moreover, house building is now costing three times as much as it did before the war. We cannot believe that this is the last word in modern planning.

We shall revive the confidence of the Building Industry and greatly widen the scope for the independent builder. The restrictive licensing system as it applies to house building should be removed, but a limit on the size of houses should be kept. Every assistance and encouragement will be given to the Building Societies.

In order to further our aim to help all those who wish to have a house of their own, local authorities will be stimulated to make full use of the Housing and Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts. Only 5 per cent. deposit in cash should be required for the purchase of a house. Certain extra costs like the recently doubled stamp duty should be abolished. Supplies of timber are vital to the whole programme. We intend to abolish the bulk buying of timber.

HOUSES TO RENT

Local authorities must continue to play their full part in providing a wide variety of houses and flats for families of every size including smaller dwellings for elderly people. We look to local authorities particularly to be the spearhead of the attack on overcrowding and the slums which we shall resume as soon as possible. Where houses are built with the aid of public funds or public credit, the necessary arrangements will be made to ensure the appropriate standards.

Liberated and if need be encouraged private enterprise can be relied upon to meet part of the need for houses to rent if, among future tax reliefs, consideration is given to depreciation allowances for owners of new houses to rent. Modernisation can be encouraged be a more generous system of licensing and by granting tax allowances to cover the cost of conversion.

Rent control must continue until there is no housing shortage at any given level. We shall keep the matter under review.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

We shall drastically change the 1947 Act. It has been shown by experience to have all the defects forecast by Conservatives in debate in Parliament. The present machinery is much too cumbersome, too rigid and too slow. Bad planning and wrong use of land must, of course, be avoided. Bur we must be careful that in seeking to control minor development we do not distract attention from the main structure of the development plans. We shall en courage more elasticity and informal consultation. The high level of the development charge and the uncertainty of its application hamper development. The amount of the charge seems to be often decided by bargaining and not on principle. The incidence of the charge must be reviewed. Any such levy must be fair to all and should be at such a rate that suitable development is not discouraged. We shall also provide an appeal against assessments.

EDUCATION

Our main objective will be to bring into operation the reforms set out in our Education Act of 1944. As was originally stated, the whole Act will take a generation to implement. Everything cannot be carried out at once.

Within the existing framework of the Act it will be necessary to discuss with local education authorities and with the Denominations the timetable of the development plans, so that all who take decisions about the future of particular schools may do so with a clear idea as to the date and the circumstances in which their various responsibilities will have to be undertaken. Where necessary we intend to adopt simpler standards for school building. This will help the voluntary schools.

A determined effort must be made to reduce the size of classes particularly in the primary schools. There is grave danger of education losing its meaning if what is happening in some areas is allowed to continue. We must be free to meet this challenge with fresh minds and active policies.

The division of all-age schools into primary and secondary must be pressed forward. We attach special importance to retaining the traditions and, wherever possible, the corporate life of the grammar schools. Every effort should be made to help parents to send their children to schools of their own choice. The status of technical schools and colleges must be enhanced and their numbers increased. We wish to see that the rewards of the teaching profession are such as will continuously attract men and women of high quality.

THE HEALTH SERVICE

We pledge ourselves to maintain and improve the Health Service. Every year the Estimates laid before Parliament have been greatly exceeded. Administrative efficiency and economy and correct priorities throughout the whole service must be assured, so that a proper balance is maintained and the hardest needs are met first. In particular the balance of the dental service should be restored so that children and mothers receive attention.

We intend to strengthen the position of the family doctor by restoring his freedom to practise anywhere and by offering a weighted capitation fee to doctors with small lists, especially in rural areas. Appeals against dismissal should be allowed to go to the Courts instead of to the Minister.

The functions and methods of appointment of Boards of management and area hospital boards require a more satisfactory basis. All hospitals within the health scheme should by statute admit the acutely sick, subject to proper safeguards. In capital expenditure priority will be given to the re-opening of beds and improving the conditions of the nursing staff.

PENSIONS

War Pensions

War pensions have been affected by the reduced purchasing power of money. We shall set up a Select Committee to see what improvements should be made, having regard to national resources.

Contributory and Non-Contributory Pensions

There are a number of improvements which ought to be made:

• An increase in the limit of weekly earnings without reduction of pensions from 30s. to 45s. in the case of widows with children and 20s. to 30s. for women pensioners with dependants.
• Assessment of casual earnings of old age pensioners on a monthly instead of a weekly basis.
• Revision of the assumed rates of interest on capital saved by applicants for non-contributory pensions.

Working Pensioners

In order to assist those who desire to prolong their working days and thus aid our production effort, a prime aim of our policy will be to provide an optional pension of 10s. a week at the age of 65 for a man and 60 for a woman without a retirement condition and without payment of contributions, other than for industrial injuries if employed, for persons insured for at least five years prior to 5th July, 1948. When they retire, or at the age of 70 for a man and 65 for a woman, they would revert to the normal pension of 26s. a week without any addition for their employment during the previous five years.

Britain and the World

The Socialist Government has failed to make good its claim at the last election that Socialism alone could reach a good understanding with Soviet Russia. “Left would speak to left,” they said; but in fact today East and West are separated by an Iron Curtain. Socialism abroad has been proved to be the weakest obstacle to Communism and in many countries of Eastern Europe has gone down before it. We are not prepared to regard those ancient states and nations which have already fallen beneath the Soviet yoke as lost for ever.

In China 500 million people have been subjected to Communist dictatorship, and in the new countries of South Eastern Asia free democracy is under heavy Communist pressure.

Too often in the last four years Britain has followed when she should have led. A Conservative Government will go forward resolutely to build, within the framework of the United Nations, a system of freedom based upon the rule of law. For this Britain must continue in ever closer association with Western Europe and the United States. But in the fore-front of British statesmanship stands the vital task of extending the unity, strength and progress of the British Empire and Commonwealth.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND COMMONWEALTH

We pledge ourselves to give our active support to all measures to promote the welfare of the British Empire and Commonwealth. We shall do all in our power to develop the new relationships in the Commonwealth with India, Pakistan and Ceylon. The more frequent the meetings between principal ministers from the countries of the Commonwealth the better, and the views of our partners on the desirability of setting up a permanent civil liaison staff will be sought. All Empire and Commonwealth Governments must review the entire field of Imperial defence and discuss together the need for a common advisory Defence Council and a combined staff so as to work together for the standardisation of equipment and methods of training.

We shall welcome and aid the steady flow of United Kingdom citizens to Common wealth countries provided that it includes a fair cross section of our population by age and occupation. The greatest possible development of Empire trade is our aim. We offer Empire producers a place in the United Kingdom market second only to the home producer. We claim the right to maintain whatever preferences or other special arrangements may be necessary. We shall be prepared to offer a guaranteed market at a remunerative price for some colonial products, and to concert plans with Commonwealth countries for the long term expansion of production of food and raw materials. Both British and American investment in the Colonies must be fostered under suitable conditions, in order to develop colonial territories to the advantage of all.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

We adhere to the ideals set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, and will sustain all agencies designed to promote the social and economic welfare of the peoples of the world.

Hand in hand with France and other friendly powers we shall pursue the aim of closer unity in Europe. The admission of the Government of Western Germany into the Council of Europe will be supported on the understanding that she accepts freely and fully the Western democratic conception of human rights. Among future tasks is the need to make an Austrian Treaty on terms which will safeguard Austrian independence and provide for the withdrawal of Russian forces simultaneously with those of the Western Powers.

Above all we seek to work in fraternal association with the United States to help by all means all countries, in Europe, Asia or elsewhere, to resist the aggression of Communism by open attack or secret penetration.

DEFENCE

Until the challenge to the authority of the United Nations is ended, we affirm the principle of national service. We believe that by wise arrangements its burden may be sensibly reduced without our fighting power being diminished. The reconstitution of the Regular Army will require pay and conditions of service which conform more closely with the standards of civil life. Recruiting for the Auxiliary Forces demands better conditions, accommodation and amenities. We are sure we can get better value for the vast sums of money now being spent.

The United Kingdom

Conservatives recognise that both Scotland and Wales have justifiable grievances against the immensely increased control of their affairs from London. Centralised control which ignores national characteristics is an essential part of Socialism. Until the Socialist Government is removed neither Scotland nor Wales will be able to strike away the fetters of centralisation and be free to develop their own way of life.

SCOTLAND

A new Minister of State for Scotland, with Cabinet rank, will act as deputy to the Secretary of State and in order to secure a proper distribution of departmental duties an additional Under-Secretary will be appointed. The whole situation as between Scotland and England in the light of modern developments requires a review by a Royal Commission and this we propose to appoint.

For coal, electricity and railways there should be separate Scottish Boards, which will act in concert with the English Boards but in no way subordinate to them. We also propose a Scottish Gas Commission, responsible to the Secretary of State, to return wherever practicable and desired, the undertakings to local authorities either singly or jointly.

The status of the heads of United Kingdom Departments in Scotland should be enhanced The powers of local councils must be maintained and strengthened and the supervision of the Secretary of State over them reduced. Wherever Scottish law and Scottish conditions on matters needing legislation differ materially from those in England and Wales, separate Scottish Bills based on conditions in Scotland ought to be promoted.

WALES

A special responsibility for Wales should be assigned to a member of the Cabinet.

A strong and diversified industrial structure founded upon mining, iron and steel must

form the basis of her future economic security. We must continue to develop a suitable range of light industries. Such local industries as quarrying must be encouraged.

Wales will benefit from our policies for hill farming, the more intensive use of marginal land and the other proposals stated in our policy for Wales.

Since the passing of the Welsh Intermediate Act, Welsh education has marched steadily forward giving an example to the whole of the United Kingdom, especially in the secondary sphere. Similar progress is to be observed in facilities for higher technical education in the Principality. We shall make it our special care to foster Welsh culture and the Welsh language.

NORTHERN IRELAND

We renew our pledge of faith which all parties have made, to Northern Ireland. We shall not allow her position as an integral part of the United Kingdom and of the Empire to be altered in the slightest degree without the consent of the Northern Ireland Parliament.

The Constitution

Conservatives believe in the Constitution as a safeguard of liberty. Socialists believe that it should be used for Party ends. They have brought in measures for changing the constitution of the House of Commons which directly violated the all-Party agreement reached by the Speaker’s Conference and were designed to give advantage to their own Party. With out mandate and without good reason they have reduced the powers of the House of Lords and taken the country a long way towards single chamber government. By over-centralisation of power they have gravely weakened our system of democratic local government.

Conservatives are determined to restore our democratic institutions to their former traditions and to their rightful place above party.

HOUSE OF LORDS

It would be our aim to reach a reform and final settlement of the constitution and powers of the House of Lords by means of an all-Party conference called at an appropriate date. It would have before it proposals that:-

• (a) the present right to attend and vote based solely on heredity should not by itself constitute a qualification for admission to a reformed House;
• (b) a reformed House of Lords should have powers appropriate to its constitution, but not exceeding those conferred by the Act of 1911.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

The Socialist Party has violated the tradition in that changes in the composition of the House should be made only in accordance with the report of an all-Party conference presided over by the Speaker. To repair this breach of faith, we shall restore, as we have already declared in Parliament, the University constituencies, holding elections immediately after the necessary legislation has been passed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

It is our aim to restore adequate confidence and responsibility to local government. To that end in consultation with local authorities of all kinds, functions and financial arrangements (including all Government grants) must be reviewed and overhauled. We wish to restore functions to the smaller authorities when reorganised, particularly the personal health services.

Our Purpose

In all that we strive to do we shall seek to serve the nation as a whole without fear or favour or subservience to the interests of one class or party.

We intend to free the productive energies of the nation from the trammels of overbearing state control and bureaucratic management. To denationalise wherever practicable, to decentralise as much as possible, to encourage and reward personal responsibility, to give enterprise and adventure their heads: these are the principles on which a Conservative Government will act. Throughout the whole of industry we intend to foster a growing spirit of unity for a common purpose.

NATIONAL UNITY

By partisan measures and factious abuse, the nation has been deeply divided in the last five years. A Conservative Government will set itself the task of bringing the people of Britain together once again. We shall act not for a section but for the nation. We shall not be the masters of the people but their servants. The Conservative aim is not enviously to suppress success, but to release energy and enterprise: not maliciously to sow distrust, but to create unity; not to pursue a doctrinaire and ill-considered theory, but to enable the British people to lead their traditional way of life.

BRITAIN OF THE FUTURE

We shall make Britain once again a place in which hard work, thrift, honesty and neighbourliness are honoured and win their true reward in wide freedom underneath the law. Reverence for Christian ethics, self-respect, pride in skill and responsibility, love of home and family, devotion to our country and the British Empire and Commonwealth, are the pillars upon which we base our faith.

The manifesto issued by the Conservative Party for the 1951 General Election.

We are confronted with a critical Election which may well be the turning point in the fortunes and even the life of Britain. We cannot go on with this evenly balanced Party strife and hold our own in the world, or even earn our living. The prime need is for a stable government with several years before it, during which time national interests must be faithfully held far above party feuds or tactics. We need a new Government not biased by privilege or interest or cramped by doctrinal prejudices or inflamed by the passions of class warfare. Such a Government only the Conservative and Unionist Party can to-day provide.

There must be no illusions about our difficulties and dangers. It is better to face them squarely as we did in 1940. The Conservative Party, who since victory have had no responsibility for the events which have led us to where we are now, offers no bribes to the electors. We will do our best to serve them and to make things better all round, but we do not blind ourselves to the difficulties that have to be overcome, or the time that will be required to bring us back to our rightful position in the world, and to revive the vigour of our national life and impulse.

We all seek and pray for peace. A mighty union of nations tread that path together, but we all know that peace can only come through their united strength and faithful brotherhood.

Contrast our position to-day with what it was six years ago. Then all our foes had yielded. We all had a right to believe and hope that the fear of war would not afflict our generation nor our children. We were respected, honoured and admired throughout the world. We were a united people at home, and it was only by being united that we had survived the deadly perils through which we had come and had kept the flag of freedom flying through the fateful year when we were alone. There, at any rate, is a great foundation and inspiration. Everyone knows how the aftermath of war brings extraordinary difficulties. With national unity we could have overcome them. But what has happened since those days?

The attempt to impose a doctrinaire Socialism upon an Island which has grown great and famous by free enterprise has inflicted serious injury upon our strength and prosperity. Nationalisation has proved itself a failure which has resulted in heavy losses to the taxpayer or the consumer, or both. It has not given general satisfaction to the wage-earners in the nationalised industries. It has impaired the relations of the Trade Unions with their members. In more than one nationalised industry the wage-earners are ill-content with the change from the private employers, with whom they could negotiate on equal terms through the Trade Unions, to the all-powerful and remote officials in Whitehall.

Our finances have been brought into grave disorder. No British Government in peace time has ever had the power or spent the money in the vast extent and reckless manner of our present rulers. Apart from the two thousand millions they have borrowed or obtained from the United States and the Dominions, they have spent more than 10 million pounds a day, or 22 thousand millions in their six years. No community living in a world of competing nations can possibly afford such frantic extravagances. Devaluation was the offspring of wild, profuse expenditure, and the evils which we suffer to-day are the inevitable progeny of that wanton way of living.

A Conservative Government will cut out all unnecessary Government expenditure, simplify the administrative machine, and prune waste and extravagance in every department.

The greatest national misfortune which we now endure is the ever falling value of our money, or, to put it in other words, the ever-increasing cost, measured in work and skill, of everything we buy. British taxation is higher than in any country outside the Communist world. It is higher by eight hundred millions a year than it was in the height of the war. We have a population of fifty millions depending on imports of food and raw materials which we have to win by our exertions, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. Since Devaluation it takes nearly twelve hours of work with hands or brains to buy across the dollar exchange what we could have got before for eight hours. We have now to give from one-quarter to one-third more of our life’s strength, skill and output of every kind and quality to get the same intake as we did before Devaluation two years ago. We pay more for what we buy from abroad. we get less for what we sell. That is what Socialist Devaluation has meant. This costly expedient has not prevented a new financial crisis.

We are a hard working people. We are second to none in ability or enterprise so far as we are allowed to use these gifts. We now have the only Socialist Government in the Empire and Commonwealth. Of all the countries in the world Britain is the one least capable of bearing the Socialist system.

The Nation now has the chance of rebuilding its life at home and of strengthening its position abroad. We must free ourselves from our impediments. Of all impediments the class war is the worst. At the time when a growing measure of national unity is more than ever necessary, the Socialist Party hope to gain another lease of power by fomenting class hatred and appealing to moods of greed and envy.

Within the limits of a statement of this kind, it is only possible to deal with some of the main questions now before us. We wish to be judged by deeds and their results and not by words and their applause. We seek to proclaim a theme, rather than write a prospectus. Many years ago I used the phrase, “Bring the rearguard in.” This meant basic standards of life and labour, the duty of the strong to help the weak, and of the successful to establish tolerable conditions for the less fortunate. That policy is adopted by all Parties to-day. But now we have the new Socialist doctrine. It is no longer, “Bring the rearguard in,” but “Keep the vanguard back.” There is no means by which this Island can support its present population except by allowing its native genius to flourish and fructify. We cannot possibly keep ourselves alive without the individual effort, invention, contrivance, thrift and good housekeeping of our people.

In 1945 I said:

“What we desire is freedom; what we need is abundance. Freedom and abundance- these must be our aims. The production of new wealth is far more beneficial than class and Party fights about the liquidation of old wealth. We must try to share blessings and not miseries. The production of new wealth must precede common wealth, otherwise there will only be common poverty.

It is because these simple truths have been denied and our people duped by idle hopes and false doctrine that the value of our money has fallen so grievously and the confidence of the world in Britain has been impaired. Confidence and currency are interdependent and restoring confidence by sound finance is one of the ways in which the value of our money may be sustained and the rising cost of living checked.

The Conservative aim is to increase our national output. Here is the surest way to keep our people fully employed, to halt the rising cost of living, and to preserve our social services. Hard work, good management, thrift – all must receive their due incentive and reward.

In the wider world outside this Island we put first the safety, progress and cohesion of the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations. We must all stand together and help each other with all our strength both in Defence and Trade. To foster commerce within the Empire we shall maintain Imperial Preference. In our home market the Empire producer will have a place second only to the home producer.

Next, there is the unity of the English-speaking peoples who together number hundreds of millions. They have only to act in harmony to preserve their own freedom and the general peace.

On these solid foundations we should all continue to labour for a United Europe, including in the course of time those unhappy countries still behind the Iron Curtain.

These are the three pillars of the United Nations Organisation which, if Soviet Russia becomes the fourth, would open to all the toiling millions of the world an era of moral and material advance undreamed of hitherto among men. There was a time in our hour of victory when this object seemed to be within our reach. Even now, in spite of the clouds and confusion into which we have since fallen, we must not abandon the supreme hope and design.

For all these purposes we support the Rearmament programme on which the Socialist Government have embarked. We believe however that far better value could be got for the immense manpower and sums of money which are involved. Special sacrifices are required from us all for the sake of our survival as free democratic communities and the prevention of war.

Our theme is that in normal times there should be the freest competition and that good wages and profits fairly earned under the law are a public gain both to the Nation and to all in industry-management and wage-earner alike. But the vast Rearmament policy of spending five thousand millions in three years on Defence inevitably distorts the ordinary working of supply and demand, therefore justice requires special arrangements for the emergency. We shall set our face against the fortuitous rise in company profits because of the abnormal process of Rearmament. We shall accordingly impose a form of Excess Profits Tax to operate only during this exceptional period.

At the same time a revision of the existing system of taxation on commercial and industrial profits is required. Relief will be given in cases where profits are ploughed back and used for the renewal of plant and equipment.

We believe in the necessity for reducing to the minimum possible all restrictive practices on both sides of industry, and we shall rely on a greatly strengthened Monopolies Commission to seek, and enable Parliament to correct, any operations in restraint of trade, including of course in the nationalised industries.

I will now mention some other practical steps we shall take.

We shall stop all further nationalisation.

The Iron and Steel Act will be repealed and the Steel industry allowed to resume its achievements of the war and post-war years. To supervise prices and development we shall revive, if necessary with added powers, the former Iron and Steel Board representing the State, the management, labour, and consumers.

Publicly-owned rail and road transport will be reorganised into regional groups of workable size. Private road hauliers will be given the chance to return to business, and private lorries will no longer be crippled by the twenty-five mile limit.

Coal will remain nationalised. There will be more decentralisation and stimulation of local initiative and loyalties, but wage negotiations will remain on a national basis.

All industries remaining nationalised will come within the purview of the Monopolies’ Commission and there will also be strict Parliamentary review of their activities.

We seek to create an industrial system that is not only efficient but human. The Conservative Workers’ Charter for Industry will be brought into being as early as possible, and extended to agriculture wherever practicable. The scheme will be worked out with trade unions and employers, and then laid before Parliament.

There you have a clear plan of action in this field.

Housing is the first of the social services. It is also one of the keys to increased productivity. Work, family life, health and education are all undermined by overcrowded homes. Therefore a Conservative and Unionist Government will give housing a priority second only to national defence. Our target remains 300,000 houses a year. There should be no reduction in the number of houses and flats built to let but more freedom must be given to the private builder. In a property-owning democracy, the more people who own their homes the better.

In Education and in Health some of the most crying needs are not being met. For the money now being spent we will provide better services and so fulfil the high hopes we all held when we planned the improvements during the war.

The whole system of town planning and development charges needs drastic overhaul.

We shall review the position of pensioners, including war pensioners, and see that the hardest needs are met first. The care and comfort of the elderly is a sacred trust. Some of them prefer to remain at work and there must be encouragement for them to do so.

To obtain more food practical knowledge and business experience must be released to comb the world for greater supplies.

We shall maintain our system of guaranteed agricultural prices and markets and protect British horticulture from foreign dumpers. We have untilled acres and much marginal land. Farmers and merchants should work together to improve distribution in the interests of the public.

Subject to the needs of Rearmament, the utmost will be done to provide better housing, water supplies, and drainage, electricity and transport in rural areas.

The fishing industry will be protected from unrestricted foreign dumping. Every effort will be made by international agreement to prevent over-fishing.

Food subsidies cannot be radically changed in present circumstances, but later we hope to simplify the system and by increases in family allowances, taxation changes and other methods, to ensure that public money is spent on those who need help and not, as at present, upon all classes indiscriminately.

Apart from proposals to help Britain to stand on her own feet by increasing productivity, we must guard the British way of life, hallowed by centuries of tradition. We have fought tyrants at home and abroad to win and preserve the institutions of constitutional Monarchy and Parliamentary government. From Britain across the generations our message has gone forth to all parts of the globe. However well-meaning many of the present Socialist leaders may be, there is no doubt that in its complete development a Socialist State, monopolising production, distribution and exchange, would be fatal to individual freedom. We look on the Government as the servant and not as the masters of the people. Multiplying orders and rules should be reduced, and the whole system kept under more rigorous Parliamentary scrutiny. We shall call an all-Party conference to consider proposals for the reform of the House of Lords.

We shall restore the University constituencies, which have been disfranchised contrary to the agreement reached by all three Parties during the war.

The United Kingdom cannot he kept in a Whitehall straitjacket. The Unionist policy for Scotland, including the practical steps proposed for effective Scottish control of Scottish affairs, will he vigorously pressed forward.

There will he a Cabinet Minister charged with the care of Welsh affairs,

We shall seek to restore to Local Government the confidence and responsibility it has lost under Socialism.

All these and other issues of the day can only he stated briefly in our Party Manifesto. A much fuller account will he given of them in Britain Strong and Freewhich will he published in a few days.

I close with a simple declaration of our faith. The Conservative and Unionist Party stands not for any section of the people but for all. In this spirit, we will do our utmost to grapple with the increasing difficulties into which our country has been plunged.

Winston Churchill

The manifesto issued by the Conservative Party for the 1955 General Election.

United for Peace and Progress:

The Conservative and Unionist Party’s Policy

A PERSONAL STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER

I took the decision to recommend a dissolution of Parliament and the holding of a General Election after much thought, and for reasons which seem to me of supreme national importance.

One of the greatest figures ever to he Prime Minister of Britain has put aside his burden. I have been called upon to take his place and to lead the Conservative and Unionist Party. It will be my purpose to give effect, in terms of the modem world, to the faith we hold and the principles we defend.

In the year 1955 – in this age of peril and promise – what needs to be done can be carried through only with the trust and goodwill of the people of this country.

This Parliament is already in its fourth year, and it is inevitable that, with a change of Prime Minister, there should be expectation of a General Election. I believe that it is better to face this issue now. Uncertainty at home and abroad as to the political future must he bad for our influence in world affairs and bad for our trade.

Moreover, as is made clear in the pages which follow, we have far-reaching plans for the future of our country. They will take years rather than months to realise, and I need the support of the country to make them possible.

As you know, much of my political life has been concerned with foreign affairs. Twice in a lifetime my generation has seen its world shaken, and almost destroyed, by a world war. Our civilisation could not hope to survive a third. It has been my work to do all I can to prevent such a catastrophe, and this will remain my firm resolve for the whole time I serve you.

But to secure peace we have to do more than lust want it or just hope for it We must be firm and resolute. Weakness can lead only to war or to subjugation without a struggle. Because of this we and our allies have to be militarily strong. We have to accept the burden this entails. However costly, it is a price worth paying to avoid a war. We must make it certain that any would-be breaker of the peace knows beyond all doubt that aggression will be met, and that at once, by overwhelming retribution. If it is known that we have both the power and the will to deliver such retribution, we can hope that the danger of war will recede and that we can build a lasting peace.

For this reason I have no doubt that we are right to make the hydrogen bomb and it is a source of strength to the country that the Opposition should support us in that step. Mr. Attlee, whose Government made the atomic bomb, has agreed that we must possess this newer and still more powerful deterrent In the face of its destructive power, any group of men would have to be not only bad, but mad, to unleash a war This fact may be the greatest force for peace.

But our policy needs more than a deterrent. It must have a more positive side. We must seek to remove the distrust which today poisons the atmosphere between East and West.

We have built the unity of the West, and our country has played a leading part in this. We are now ready for wider discussion. We will spare no effort to bring about meetings with the leaders of the Soviet Union and try to agree around the table proposals which will make a fresh advance towards disarmament and security for all peoples. I shall never despair of finding by agreement solutions which will rid the world of fear.

At home we need a new authority if we are to develop the full sweep of our plans, which offer enormous opportunities.

Within the lifetime of the Parliament which is about to be elected the first stage of our programme to produce electricity from nuclear power will be completed. What this means in material progress in Britain, how we plan to effect a steady and accelerating increase in the living standards of every section of our people, is set out in this document These projects will inevitably take time but they can soon begin to revolutionise our national life.

During the last three and a half years the Conservative Government has achieved many of the aims proclaimed in 1951. We have seen solvency succeed the threat of national bankruptcy. We have seen both employment and earnings reach new high levels. We have seen new houses and new schools and new factories built and building, and soon we shall see new hospitals too. We have seen the social services extended and improved.

Now the time has come for a new effort and fresh advances. To realise them we need a mandate measured not in months but in years. Here are some of the demands we shall have to meet

We must fight with vigour the war on the slums and the war against ill-health and disease. We must equip our rising generation with an education to fit them for the requirements of this new age and to enable them to make the best use of their talents. We must produce more and produce it more efficiently. We must capture new markets overseas. We must save to invest in the future – at home and in the Commonwealth and Empire.

To be successful we need a great national effort in which the fullest use is made of our finest asset – the character of our people. For that character to find its true expression we have to deepen our sense of national unity.

How can this be achieved? One way would be to try to impose it from the top. The Conservative way is to encourage the growth of unity and fellowship in a free and neighbourly society in which the people of every calling work naturally together. I believe that this can be brought about if we develop in this country what I have many times described as a property-owning democracy.

Such ownership can be expressed in the home, in savings or in forms of partnership in industry. It can take many shapes; but the essential theme is clear. We are against increased ownership of power and property by the State. We seek ever wider ownership of power and property by the people. We aim at a community of free men and women working together for the common good.

Anthony Eden

UNITED FOR PEACE AND PROGRESS

Two parties have governed in Great Britain in these post-war years. The effective choice at this Election will lie between these two. Each will present a manifesto of its beliefs and policy. Each will expound its theme at length and at large. But a Party must not only be judged by what it says. It must be judged even more by what it does. Therefore we ask the British people to make this comparison now: Which were better for themselves, for their families and for their country? The years of Socialism or the years of Conservatism that have followed?

Let us look at the record.

Socialists had claimed that the political Left would be able to speak to the Soviets in comradeship. This indeed proved an empty boast. They promised that their methods of “planning” would make us masters of our economic destiny. Yet they allowed one financial crisis after another to rock our land. They pretended that their policy was bringing prosperity. In fact it opened up an endless vista of filling in forms, cutting out coupons, applying for permits, waiting on housing lists and standing in queues.

For six years their meddling and muddling made post-war problems harder and gravely injured our strength. The climax came in 1951, when chronic inflation at home cut more than 2s. off the value of every £ and the worst balance of payments crisis in our history brought the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.

Contrast the position now with what it was in that dark hour. Under Conservative administration we have broken away at long last from the regular cycle of crises. We have proved, by re-establishing confidence in our currency, by maintaining full employment, by restoring housewives choice and by smashing housing records, that Conservative freedom works.

Indeed, we in Britain are producing, building, selling, earning and buying more to-day than ever before. Personal savings have more than trebled since 1951. Judging by this alone the nation has regained faith in its own future. Abroad, too, we have turned a more hopeful page. Imaginative diplomacy has awakened respect for British leadership, and the new strength and unity of the West should provide the essential basis on which we may seek an understanding with the East.

The successes of Conservatism have now made possible a fine and ambitious target. We believe that the British people have a real chance during the coming twenty-five years to double their standard of living. The future beckons to this generation with a golden finger. Peace can bring abundance for all, if we match the opportunity with the will to prosper.

Conservatives do not pretend that the way ahead is easy. There will be no lack of obstacles and dangers in our path. We shall need every ounce of individual effort and resourcefulness that we can muster. We shall need a spirit of partnership and a firm sense of duty to our country. We shall need a general readiness to save as well as to spend. We shall need a Government that will lead, and not hamper.

Socialists cannot be trusted to provide such a Government. They failed in their six years of office. Their appeal to the Electorate in 1951 was founded, not on constructive policies, but on scares – that we were warmongers, that we would create mass unemployment, that we would slash the social services – which experience has proved were lies. They have spent most of their time in Opposition quarrelling with one another. On vital issues of State policy they cannot speak as a united Party. In so far as they have a programme at all, it consists of a mixture of more and more nationalisation and a return to State restrictions and controls.

We do not question the sincerity of our political opponents. All Parties pray for peace. All Parties desire no less the prosperity and welfare of the people. These ends are not at issue between the Parties. The issue is: Which Party has shown, in practice and in prospect, that it knows and can use the means to secure them? If the lessons of yesterday are remembered, tomorrow can be bright indeed. A vote for Socialism is a vote for the policy which was tried and which failed. To vote Conservative is to invest in success.

In the following pages we outline the constructive proposals of the Conservative and Unionist Party for the next five years, and the main themes of our longer-term policy. Peace and security in the nuclear age; a programme for prosperity; the development of a property-owning democracy, and the strengthening of personal freedom and national unity – these are our principal objectives in conducting the affairs of Government.

Our policy is a policy for Great Britain as a whole. Distinctive needs and aspirations of Scotland and of Wales require special care and they receive separate mention.

PEACE AND SECURITY

Science in our day has unlocked the secret of atomic and nuclear power. The future of our civilisation depends on the use to which mankind puts this knowledge. Never in history have the issues of peace and war been more sharply defined. For the same power that can forge weapons of mass destruction can also confer blessings beyond all our dreams.

Already research, medicine and industry are making great and growing use of atomic material manufactured in Britain. Already our country leads the world in its programme of nuclear power stations for generating electricity. We give our fullest support to President Eisenhower’s initiative to develop atoms for peace through an international agency, and will readily contribute from our own resources.

DETERRENTS AND DISARMAMENT

Britain, like America and Russia, has also the knowledge and capacity to make nuclear weapons. That we should use this knowledge is not in dispute between the Parties. The Socialist Government made the atomic bomb. The Socialist Opposition has said it shares our view that the possession of the hydrogen bomb is necessary.

Why? Because to have the hydrogen bomb is today the best way of preventing war; the best and perhaps the only way to convince the Communists that they have nothing to gain, and indeed everything to lose, from aggression, whereas the whole world has everything to gain from peace and general disarmament.

The Conservative Government will continue to strive for world disarmament. To be real, such disarmament must be balanced, all-round and effectively controlled. We cannot agree to one-sided disarmament. The issue is not simply whether to ban the hydrogen bomb. Our disarmament plan makes it plain that this must be done. But banning the bomb alone would make the risks of war not smaller but greater, as long as the Communists retained their superiority in all other arms and in manpower. Therefore we say we must not only abolish nuclear weapons, but also reduce armies and armaments to a point where no one State can threaten the peace. We say too that there must be effective international inspection and safeguards, applying both to nuclear and other weapons. We have made in the United Nations far-reaching and constructive proposals to these ends. Up to now the Communist powers have rejected these proposals. But we do not give up hope; and we shall not give up trying. For general disarmament such as we have described is the only path to lasting peace and safety.

PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH

Meanwhile our interest and duty is to make war less likely by building up, with our allies, the most powerful deterrent to aggression we can achieve. Our defence policy aims to bring each of the Services into line with the strategy of the nuclear age, to arm each with the most modern weapons, to improve conditions of life in the Forces, and to re-shape home defence where the need for civilian services will remain vital.

The Conservative Party does not regard the current two years period of whole time National Service as necessarily having come to stay. Its object is twofold: to ensure that the active forces have enough men to carry out their commitments and to build up trained reserves of skilled men for an emergency. National Service is thus an instrument of our foreign and Imperial policy. But it is not an end in itself. A Conservative Government will continue to suit its application, and the period of service, to the needs of the time.

In our policy of peace through strength we are not alone. With our Commonwealth and Atlantic partners this country serves the common cause of freedom and peace. We and other Commonwealth countries joined with the United Nations in condemning and resisting aggression in Korea. We play a leading part in the Atlantic Alliance, the main shield of peace and the formal expression of Anglo-American solidarity. Britain too by her initiative has helped to create Western European Union, the hub of the alliance between the free peoples of the Continent.

In Western European Union we have undertaken an act of faith without precedent in British history, in that we are pledged to keep our forces on the Continent so long as they are needed by our European allies. This British pledge, following the French rejection of E.D.C., led to the London and Paris Agreements. It has restored the basis of European unity. It has strengthened N.A.T.O. by giving America and Canada added confidence in their European partners. It holds out the hope of a new and friendly relationship between France and Germany.

The Soviets began to rearm Eastern Germany seven years ago. In carrying forward the policy set on foot by the Labour Government of bringing the German Federal Republic into the Western defence system, we have erected a barrier to aggression, not to negotiation.

We should be wrong to minimise the fundamental issues of principle that divide us from the Communist world. We cannot ignore the post-war record of Communist subversion and attack, or their world-wide conspiracy to undermine free institutions and to divide and confuse the free peoples. We cannot excuse their denial of the rights of free worship and free expression. Whatever the origins of Communist theory, its practice has led to the extinction of freedom and the enthronement of tyranny wherever it has spread. Only if we are firm in faith and spirit, and united in common purpose with our allies, can we hope to achieve in time something better than a state of cold war.

We are determined to keep our Western Alliance defensive in character, to indulge in no provocation, to take advantage of every chance to settle disputes. In the changed Soviet attitude towards the signature of an Austrian Treaty, which we have repeatedly proposed, we may be seeing a first-fruit of the ratification of the London and Paris Agreements. We hope that this new mood may extend to other outstanding problems. It is still our hope that the Soviet Government can be brought to agree to the unity of Germany on the basis of free elections.

Now ratification is complete and the unity of the West assured, we shall welcome and work for any high-level meeting or conference with the Soviets which seems to be practicable and useful.

DIPLOMACY AND SECURITY

It would be a mistake to assume that nothing can be settled unless or until everything is settled. During this period of Conservative Government a fresh spirit of initiative and of refusal to accept stalemate has already been successfully brought to bear on many problems which once seemed insoluble. Not only was Western European Union. due to a British initiative, but in the Korean armistice, in the Geneva settlement of the Indo-China war, which could so easily have become a world conflict, and in the ending of the Trieste dispute, our country has played a leading part.

On taking office we faced difficult and dangerous situations in Persia and Egypt. Today there are agreements with both these countries. That with Egypt has enabled us to redeploy our forces. That with Persia has meant that oil is flowing from Abadan once again. Our prestige throughout this area has been restored. Thus we have a better chance to continue helping the countries of the Middle East in their plans both for defence and for economic development, and also to work for a reconciliation between the Arab States and Israel.

In the Formosa Straits we should like to see a guarantee on both sides not to resort to force, and the withdrawal of Chinese Nationalist forces from the coastal islands. This could lead to the reconsideration at an appropriate moment both of Chinese representation in the United Nations and the future status of Formosa.

The South-East Asia Treaty Organisation, guaranteeing the Geneva settlement, is the first step towards collective security in this area. The basic necessity is strength in arms; but social and economic betterment can be a powerful reinforcement in less developed countries which might otherwise be undermined by Communist infiltration. We shall make a real contribution to the raising of living standards both under the Colombo Plan and through the Agencies of the United Nations.

COMMONWEALTH AND COLONIES

The British Commonwealth and Empire is the greatest force for peace and progress in the world today. It comprises a quarter of the world’s population. It contains peoples of every race, of every religion, of every colour, and at every stage of political and economic advance. It represents the most fascinating and successful experiment in government and in international relations ever known.

We are its founder member, and for a large part we are still directly responsible. Other powerful communities have their territories confined within a limited area. The Common wealth and Empire alone straddles the globe. For us isolationism is impossible.

It is, therefore, of the first importance that machinery for consultation between the self-governing partner members of the Commonwealth, already so close, should be steadily improved and perfected. Five times within less than four years Commonwealth leaders have met together. In their approach to world problems and economic policies an ever closer concord has been established. We are in constant touch on foreign affairs and defence. As opportunity offers, we should like to see Commonwealth Ministers with responsibility for other aspects of public policy, such as the social services, meeting and consulting together. It is the concept of a family council which underlies our relationship and which must and shall endure.

We wish to strengthen the cohesion and influence of the Commonwealth. We uphold the principle of racial partnership, as exemplified in the new Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland so auspiciously launched and increasingly enjoying the confidence of Europeans and Africans. We shall work to raise living standards and to guide Colonial peoples along the road to self-government within the framework of the Commonwealth and Empire. We shall do all we can to insulate these problems from the heat of Party conflict.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Commonwealth partnership enabled us to stave off the economic perils that faced the whole Sterling Area at the time the Conservative Government took over. It offers the best hope of prosperity for the future.

Conservative policy will stimulate the flow of private and public capital from London for sound Empire development. Last year alone the Government approved applications for new investment in the Commonwealth to a total of £160 million. In addition there was much private investment in the sterling Commonwealth which did not need Government approval. Great wealth-creating projects are under way in all the Commonwealth countries and in the Colonial territories too.

The peaceful uses of nuclear energy will be of the utmost benefit to Commonwealth and Empire, and we are already helping a number of Commonwealth countries with research and development programmes.

Like all countries of advanced development and democratic tradition, we have responsibilities towards the less fortunate peoples of the world. We have a special responsibility for the welfare and happiness of the seventy millions who live in British Colonies, Protectorates and Trust Territories. We must give them every help in their continuing assault on ignorance, want and disease.

Special arrangements have been made to enable us to help industries in the Colonies by treating them in certain circumstances as though they were industries of the United Kingdom. A powerful contribution to better conditions will continue to be made under the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts which we have recently extended and improved. We shall seek to promote capital investment in the improvement of Colonial communications, the winning of minerals and the modernisation of agriculture, with emphasis on peasant production. Measures to increase food supplies must occupy a high place. Land utilisation and related problems in East Africa have been examined by a Royal Commission whose conclusions will have careful study.

POLITICAL PROGRESS

From the shores of Africa westwards to the Caribbean and eastwards to the Pacific Islands, the Colonies are thinking of their future. They differ vastly in size, resources and tradition. Each must be helped to solve its own problems. Our administrative and technical officers are doing fine work in fostering political and economic advance. They still have a part to play in the self-governing Colonies, for some of these also need and want their help.

So diverse are the circumstances that it would be unrealistic to lay down a cut and dried time-table for the evolution of political maturity. Our purpose and goodwill in achieving self-government for the Colonies are proclaimed by recent constitutional advances in many parts of the Empire, for example in West Africa. We believe that people in self-governing Colonies will find greater security, prosperity and freedom by remaining part of the Commonwealth. It is well known how easy a prey small, independent countries can be to Communism or adverse economic circumstances. Moreover, it is our responsibility to see that the rights of minorities are fully safeguarded, and self-government can be granted only when we are certain of this. In multi-racial communities we believe that the way to progress must lie through a real racial partnership.

A Conservative Government would work to these ends throughout the Colonies, judging each problem individually and striving to solve it without prejudice. We shall maintain law and order wherever peaceful progress is threatened; doing all in our power to settle rival claims, whether political, religious, or racial, impartially, and with tolerance and humanity.

PROGRAMME FOR PROSPERITY

The economic policy of the Conservative Party is to help create the conditions in which the British people can steadily improve their standard of living. As long as we conduct our affairs wisely and get on with the job of raising the national product year by year, the country can be twice as well off in twenty-five years time as it is now.

So we say: Let us strive to double our standard of living within this period. Let every one have a firmer stake in the fortunes of his country. Let everyone have a fuller chance to earn more and to own more, to get on and to have more enjoyment as well. Given the boon of world peace, all this can be ours, if we will work for it and save for it and so deserve to have it.

How, then, shall we invest in success?

First, we must believe in it. We need throughout the nation an ever-growing sense of partnership and a lively spirit of venture. If we take pride in our work, have confidence in one another, and are ready to give up out-worn attitudes and methods for new, then we are already half-way to success.

Second, we must devote more of our resources to increasing productivity; and this means saving as well as spending. First thought must go to investment in productive forms of capital-factory and farm buildings, plant and machinery, communications and power. This must be matched by far-sighted educational policies to augment our scientific and technical skills.

Third, we must invest in wealth-creating schemes overseas, and especially in the Commonwealth and Colonies. Development of their resources is a practical example of our partnership and will make life better both for them and for us.

Fourth, we must continue to sell more and earn more abroad. Only thus can we pay for the extra raw materials we shall need for rising production, and build up a trading surplus large enough to increase our investment overseas. To expand world trade and our own share in the world’s export markets is a foremost task.

Men and women cannot be compelled or commanded or cajoled into greater prosperity. Nor can such prosperity come overnight as a gift of Government. What a Government can do is to encourage people to think and to act in terms of expansion rather than restriction, of freedom rather than control. The Conservative Government alone in post-war Britain has shown its ability and willingness to do that.

TRADE NOT AID

We live by world trade: the more world trade there is, the better we shall live. We share in it, we ship it, we insure it and we help finance it. We have been selling, and we shall have to go on selling, against fierce competition in the markets of the world. The first object of our policy must be to enable British industry to do this in what is likely to remain a buyer’s market.

Therefore, we have got rid of a vast range of manufacturing controls and we aim to stay rid of them. British industry must be adaptable, and ready not only to hold old markets but to jump into new ones with new ideas and new products. Freedom from control and a stable home economy are the true foundations of a successful export trade; both would be in peril under Socialism.

For our part, we intend to make our export trade a first charge upon our resources. Without success in this field, neither defensive strength nor social welfare can be achieved, and it is our object to achieve them both.

It is with this in mind that the Conservative Government has taken the lead in organising a move towards a world-wide system of freer trade and freer payments. The two must march together. We must re-establish sterling in a position so strong and respected that it can play its full part as a major international currency.

The solution of the complex problems involved will take time. It requires, in particular, a suitable response from the dollar world, such as the President of the United States has recommended. We in Britain have shown our goodwill and intentions. For example, we have relaxed restrictions on imports from Europe, and re-opened our international commodity markets.

Our aim being to expand trade, we must observe a system of trade rules which makes such an expansion possible. This policy is in harmony with our Commonwealth trade relations, and the Commonwealth countries themselves pursue it. More than half our trade consists of purchases from or sales to the Commonwealth and Empire. We have negotiated special arrangements under the G.A.T.T. in the interests of Colonial industries.

It will be our constant aim to safeguard the special interests of the cotton textile industry in the important interchanges taking place with other Governments particularly concerned.

We have announced our decision that trade relations with Japan should continue to be dealt with by mutually negotiated arrangements, and our desire for a long-term commercial treaty.

We propose to strengthen our defences against unfair trade practices. The Government has taken a leading part in seeking to obtain the elimination or limitation of export subsidies in international trade. Material injury can be caused to domestic industry through the use by other countries of these devices, and we propose to take powers to impose countervailing and anti-dumping duties in such cases and within the terms of our international agreements.

Any country pursuing a policy of economic expansion and full employment faces a constant danger of inflation. The risk is that home demand may take away from the export trade and swell the import bill. Here sound monetary and fiscal policies are powerful weapons. We propose to continue with their flexible use.

AN EXPANDING ECONOMY

If Britain is to seize the opportunities which our trade policy can open up, economic arrangements at home have got to be as modern and go-ahead as we can possibly make them.

Conservatives neither minimise nor exaggerate the part that Governments can play in bringing these conditions about. It is for the State to give a lead, to provide incentive, support and advice, to protect the public interest and to restrain abuse. But it is certainly no proper function of the State in normal times to go into trade itself, to interfere in the day-to-day running of business, or to tell housewives how to do their shopping. Within broad but well-defined limits of basic public concern, we insist on freedom of action for producers and freedom of choice for consumers.

FULL EMPLOYMENT

Under Conservative administration a working population of record peace-time size has been kept fully employed, without Socialist controls and without continual inflation. Our record speaks for itself. In the intensely competitive times ahead, continued full employment must mean, not only everyone in a job, but everyone doing their job to the full. Only with a high output – high earnings economy can we maintain and improve our trading position.

The Government has sought, with an encouraging measure of success, to create the right climate of confidence and to foster the idea of a common interest and task. Team-work is an essential driving force of a dynamic economy. There is really only one side in modern industry, and all of us are on it. As Conservatives we have always believed this.

We shall follow up our work for better human relations in industry by discussing with the joint advisory bodies of employers and Trade Unions, and with the British Productivity Council, how best they can increase their status and the scope of their work. We shall encourage such individual employers as are not already doing so, to keep their workpeople regularly and frankly informed of the fortunes and problems of their firm.

We wish to see proper rewards for extra skill, effort and responsibility. Where they are suitable and desired, co-partnership and profit-sharing schemes should be encouraged. They give employees a stake in the prosperity of their firm and so contribute to our concept of a property-owning democracy. We shall continue to assist better training within industry.

We intend to launch a vigorous drive to promote the health, welfare and safety of the working population, with the aid of our new Mines and Quarries Act and of the recently established Industrial Health Advisory Committee. Legislation will be passed to promote a steady improvement of conditions for other workers, including those in transport and in farming, in offices and in shops. We shall also introduce new legislation to safeguard the employment of children.

EQUAL PAY

The Labour Party has been talking about equal pay for as long as anyone can remember; it has taken a Conservative Government to do something about it for its own employees. In fulfilment of our pledge at the last Election, the principle of equal pay for equal work in the public service is now being applied by stages.

COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE

We reaffirm our belief in the system of free competitive enterprise. The Conservative Party is strongly opposed to any further measure of nationalisation. We are equally anxious that private enterprise should be free from any reproach of harmful restrictive practices. Many of these practices, on both sides of industry, are relics of the past, quite out of place today.

The Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission, first suggested and recently strengthened by the Conservatives, has started on the right path. Its recommendations have been acted upon. The Conservative Government has made a new approach by referring for examination certain practices which cover a wide range of industry. This reference is likely to raise many issues ranging from the existence of private trade courts to the right of proprietors of branded goods to fix a uniform price for their products. These are complex questions. Our policy is to obtain an impartial statement of the facts and their effect on the national interest, and then to take the action appropriate in each case.

CONSUMER CHOICE

Socialists, the makers of new monopolies, are posing now as the champions of the consumer. Multiply the Ministries and clamp on the controls is what, in effect, they say. But that was precisely their policy after the war. It led, despite heavy food subsidies, paid for out of taxation, to a 40 per cent. rise in the cost of living in six years and to the perpetuation of shortages and queues, ration-books and black markets, snoopers and spivs. All these things will inevitably come back if the Socialists get their way. They seem to think that the British housewife is incapable of deciding for herself; we are sure that it is the customer, and not “the gentleman in Whitehall,” who knows best.

We warned the country at the last Election that it would take time and immense efforts to stabilise the purchasing power of money. We claim to have made progress. The cost of living has risen less in the past three years than in the Socialists’ last single year; and, what is more, the standard of living of the great mass of the people has steadily and substantially improved.

Average industrial earnings and social security payments have gone ahead of price rises. Clothes and many household goods are cheaper. We have rejected policies which would deliberately deny to the housewife food in plenty and plenty of choice. But we accept the obligation to continue to work for more stable prices. We are certain that freedom and efficiency are the keys to abundance and to lower cost.

TAXATION AND INVESTMENT

Efficiency is powerfully affected by taxation policy. If the toll of taxes is too high, enterprise and thrift are discouraged; and lax Government spending can itself be a root cause of inflation.

In an armed Welfare State the demands on taxable resources cannot be light. This makes it all the more necessary that government, central and local, should be run economic ally. There are today over 50,000 fewer civil servants and four fewer Ministries than when we took over. Conservatives will persist in the drive for simpler and less expensive administration.

We have already succeeded in making substantial reductions in P.A.Y.E. and the Purchase Tax, and have introduced new allowances to help factory and farm re-equipment. The 1955 budget is one more proof of our determination to reduce where we can the burden of taxation on the individual, on the family and on industry. We hope to make further progress in the years ahead.

We recognise the decline in the standard of living suffered since 1939 by many salaried workers and by many who live on fixed incomes, savings and pensions. They stand to benefit most from the more stable prices and lower taxation which can be expected from a period of sound and steady Government, but which Socialist policies would render impossible. Within the limits set by our economic circumstances, we must seek to bring the structure of the income tax into line with modern conditions, facilitate provision for retirement, and pay regard to cases of hardship among those who have served the State.

The Conservative Party acknowledges the part that budgetary policy can play in stimulating saving and private investment. A striking rise n factory building approvals and in new orders for machine tools has already followed from our system of investment allowances.

We must see to it that manufacturing industry and agriculture are well served. Ample supplies of steel are vital, particularly to our export trade, and the denationalised iron and steel industry, which is breaking production records month by month, has now embarked on a further programme of capital investment and expansion. Up-to-date means of transport and ready sources of power are equally essential. For this purpose, those sections of our economy that remain nationalised must be brought to a higher peak of efficiency. Here again, investment is an important factor.

TRANSPORT

We must move our goods swiftly to markets, shops and homes, and to the ports for our overseas trade. In work and at leisure we look to our railways, roads and airways to give us efficient service. It is Conservative policy to see that they do. The spur of competition which we have provided will certainly help. In addition, both railways and roads require vigorous development to make up for the time lost in the years of war and of Socialism.

We shall make it possible for the British Transport Commission to push on with its comprehensive plan of modernisation and re-equipment, so that the railways may earn their own living and a good wage for those who work on them. The public and industry are entitled to a better service.

We have already started on the first big programme of road construction since the war. The first great motorways to be built in this country will help traffic to flow between our cities. But we will not sacrifice safety to speed. Our programme also includes the elimination of hundreds of accident “black spots”. This will be combined with intensive propaganda, the new highway code and fresh legislation in a drive for greater safety.

Air transport gives us new highways. Experience has shown that a blend of public and private enterprise is best for this service. Close co-operation with shipping can often be of great value. The Airways Corporations will continue to have an important role; we shall ensure that their relationships with independent operators are developed in the interests of traveller, trader and taxpayer.

FUEL AND POWER

Britain built her industrial supremacy on coal. We shall continue to need all the coal we can get. But we must look to new sources of energy as well to meet the demands of an expanding economy.

The peaceful uses of nuclear energy can make an incalculable contribution to the raising of living standards. A new industrial era may indeed be ushered in when the atom has been harnessed to bring everyday heat, light and power to factory, farm and home. Quietly, unobtrusively, our scientists have been working; and the Conservative Government has now become the first in the world to launch a programme of nuclear power stations on a commercial scale. This will be pressed ahead at the utmost speed.

The National Coal Board has now been reorganised. The efficiency of nationalised electricity is also under independent examination.

We intend to increase capital investment in new pits and major reconstruction schemes to four times what it was when we took over in 1951. Greater supplies of good coal would not only be gratifying to the user, including the housewife, but also a substantial help to our balance of payments. We recognise that as far as one can see ahead the demand for coal will outstrip capacity. So we must make coal work harder, and economise in its use, by extending our industrial loan scheme and by other means. We must also supplement our coal with oil, and in particular ensure by progressive conversion of electric power stations that their mounting fuel needs can be met by oil instead of coal.

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

Our country’s prosperity is bound up with her scientific knowledge and the extent to which her industrialists and farmers make use of it. We therefore place a strong emphasis in our educational policy upon the expansion of scientific and technological training. We shall continue to promote and encourage research both in private industry and State establishments.

We regard the widest possible spread of scientific information as a major factor in modern progress. With this in mind we shall take early steps to expand the Patent Office Library into a National Reference Library of Science and Invention, and to develop a National Lending Library of Science and Technology whose facilities will be available to all British firms, large and small.

AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES

Side by side with the expansion of other productive industries Britain needs a strong and progressive agriculture, and always will do. The Conservative Party gives a pledge to the farming community that so long as we are responsible there will be fair prices for good farming, orderly marketing of the main farm products, and no nationalisation of the land.

By support prices, deficiency payments and other means, we shall uphold the principle of the 1947 Agriculture Act. We have shown, for example with milk, potatoes and eggs, our firm belief in Producer Marketing Boards where these have majority support and safeguard consumers and taxpayers. Marketing arrangements should continue to put a premium on efficiency.

The more efficient our agriculture continues to grow, the better it will be for everyone. The farmer will become more independent. There will be more scope for increased production. The housewife will be better satisfied. And the taxpayer will need to find less in agricultural subsidies, which are now running at the formidable rate of some £250 million a year.

We must, therefore, direct our main effort to the wide range of farm production where the overseas supplier has no natural advantage. We should save unnecessary imports of feeding stuffs by concentrating on grass and ley farming. To encourage good husbandry and to help the small farmer in particular, the wide range of improvement and other production grants must be continued. We shall take care that credit facilities are adequate. There will be further development of the Government’s research, education and advisory services. By these and other means we shall provide the knowledge, advice and incentive needed to secure the maximum economic production from our land.

Under Conservative Government country workers are assured of better housing conditions, better schools for their children and more village halls. Three out of every four farms and cottages will be linked to a main electricity supply on the completion of a major five-year programme which we have initiated. We have doubled the amount paid annually in grants for rural water supplies and sewerage; this progress will be kept up, and further funds made available.

We have taken steps within our international agreements which have enabled us to increase the tariffs on a number of horticultural products. With a view to improving the marketing of fruit and vegetables, we shall give close study to the conclusions of the recently established inquiry.

The marketing of home-grown timber is now under review. We wish to see greater use made of the grants available to private woodland owners.

The needs of the fishing industry will have constant attention. Further efforts will be made towards improving international control of over-fishing. Investment in research and the building of new vessels will continue to receive steady Government aid.

THE TASK AHEAD

This is an age of challenge and opportunity. In the first half of the century we had to sacrifice our wealth and our overseas investments in two world wars: in the struggle for life and freedom we diminished our commercial strength. Now in this second half of the century, more dependent than ever on our foreign trade in an increasingly competitive world, we must venture for livelihood and prosperity. Ours are long-term problems: they cannot be settled and solved automatically by an Act of Parliament, by some trick of organisation, by one short spurt of intense activity. We can never allow a mood of complacency and inertia to settle down upon us.

After these few years of Conservative Government, the economy is in much better shape, and the nation in much better heart. Now we must harness these assets to a new and powerful surge of national effort.

Socialism would merely hinder this task. Instead of thinking how to expand wealth in which all can share, the Socialists continue to “plan” the equal division of scarcity. Instead of looking forward to the next twenty-five years, they are still parroting the untruths and half-truths of twenty-five years ago. Instead of learning from the many mistakes they made when in office, they are obstinately preparing to repeat them. Their partisan attitudes would create disunity among the people and undermine business confidence. Their policies would involve an increase in Government spending so huge that there could be no saving for purposes of investment. Their immediate contribution to our trading problems would be to nationalise and disrupt some of our most efficient and progressive export industries.

We offer the nation a programme for prosperity; they offer a blue-print for disaster.

HOME AND FAMILY

Britain’s greatest asset has always lain in the gifts and character of her people. It must be the purpose of a vigorous and progressive society to enable this asset to be fully and freely developed. Our programme for prosperity can succeed only if the nation is in good heart and good health, well housed and well educated. All must be secure in the possession of a basic standard of life; and all must be free to rise above it as far as their industry and talents may take them.

We denounce the Labour Party’s desire to use the social services, which we all helped to create, as an instrument for levelling down. We regard social security, not as a substitute for family thrift, but as a necessary basis or supplement to it. We think of the National Health Service as a means, not of preventing anyone from paying anything for any service, but of ensuring that proper attention and treatment are denied to no-one. We believe that equality of opportunity is to be achieved, not by sending every boy and girl to exactly the same sort of school, but by seeing that every child gets the schooling most suited to his or her aptitudes. We see a sensible housing policy in terms, not of one hopeless Council waiting list, but of adequate and appropriate provision both for letting and for sale.

We wish to develop in our country the idea of a property-owning democracy. That means that people should be owners as well as earners. Our theme is that property, power and responsibility alike must not become absorbed into the State machine, but be widely spread throughout the whole of the community. To this end, we shall encourage home ownership. We shall foster thrift. We shall stimulate a spirit of partnership in industry. We shall maintain the independence of the small trader and landowner and of the professional man. We shall cherish local democracy. We shall strengthen the rights of the individual. The aim and consequence of Conservative policy will be to enable men and women, in alt the groups to which they belong, to lead their own lives in their own way within the limits of law and the obligations of good neighbourliness.

LIBERTY AND THE LAW

Justice between citizen and citizen, and justice between citizen and State must be upheld and strengthened.

The Conservative Party regretted that economic difficulties made it necessary for the Socialist Government to defer indefinitely the operation of important parts of the Legal Aid and Advice Act. We are now preparing to extend legal aid to proceedings in the County Courts, and also intend during the life of the next Parliament to introduce the comprehensive scheme for legal advice.

We have cut back war-time powers and regulations which trespassed upon British liberties. Seven out of every ten have been eliminated, and we shall take steps to deal with the rest.

We are determined that, in exercising the normal powers of Government in a modern State, a just balance should be struck, and seen to be struck, between the interests of the individual and those of the community. There is no ground for belief that, as a general rule, justice is not substantially done; but we consider that there is room for further improvement in the machinery of tribunals, of public inquiries and of departmental decisions affecting individual interests and property. The public has a right to be assured on these matters. We shall therefore appoint a strong advisory Committee, representative of a wide range of public life and service, to give practical attention to these problems of administrative law and recommend action. We shall ask them to consider as a matter of particular urgency whether changes are needed in the present practice and procedure of compulsory acquisition.

Wherever possible we shall reduce the acreage of land now owned by the State, and shall press ahead with the derequisitioning of Government-held buildings. Local authorities must also restore requisitioned houses and flats to their owners as speedily as possible, without causing hardship to present occupiers.

HOUSES AND AMENITIES

Our aim is to ensure that every family has a decent home to live in. Our Party’s pledge to build 300,000 houses a year was derided by our opponents as impossible to fulfil. In fact nearly 350,000 were built last year, and at least as many are likely to be built this year. Already under Conservative Government a million new homes have been provided.

Only under Conservative administration can the nation be sure of a housing policy in line with its needs.

Now that the construction of new homes is going ahead so well, we shall be able to devote a larger part of our resources to the elimination of slums and the modernisation of the older houses.

There has been only one full-scale slum clearance drive in British history, and that was when Conservatives were in office in the late ‘thirties. Now, under Conservative Government, there is going to be another. We shall root out the slums at an increasing pace, and aim to re house at least 200,000 people a year from them.

People are already benefiting from the repair, improvement and conversion of the older houses in which they live. They should remember that the Labour Party voted in Parliament against the Act which gave recent impetus to this work. The Conservative Government will do all it can to encourage private owners and local authorities to make fuller use of the improvement grants available.

With the abolition of building licences, the competitive efficiency of the private builder can now play its full part in keeping down costs. This will help more people to afford a home of their own. We shall encourage local authorities to adopt schemes which enable the Building Societies to accept a smaller cash deposit. We shall also seek means of including legal costs in the money advanced to house purchasers, and review the rate of the Stamp Duty, particularly on smaller homes.

In this crowded Island we must not build without giving careful thought to where we build. Conservatives will see that good farm land is protected, that big towns are restrained from sprawling haphazardly into the countryside, and that development to relieve over crowded cities takes place where, and only where, there will be work and amenities available for the people who move.

Within the home we wish to see domestic tasks lightened by improved labour-saving and fuel-saving appliances, and the most modern amenities.

More than a thousand new telephones a day are now being installed, and we intend to speed up this record progress.

The new medium of television, which is becoming ever more important in our lives, must not be under monopoly control. Conservatives have ensured that alternative and competing television programmes will soon be available. Measures to improve reception of sound broadcasts where necessary must also go forward.

EDUCATION

The most urgent problem in education since the war has been to provide for the huge rise in the school roll. Under Conservative Government a record number of new schools has been completed and a record number of teachers recruited. We have kept pace with the growth in the school population.

Now we can draw ahead, bring down the size of classes, improve existing buildings and equipment, and extend facilities for scientific and technical training.

In the next five years we shall provide at least another million new school places, mostly in secondary schools. In this period we intend to complete the reorganisation of all-age classes in the rural areas and make good progress with reorganisation in the towns. We shall also tackle the problem of the slum schools.

Local authorities have been given greater freedom to improve existing schools. More generous assistance is now available to voluntary schools, whose religious teaching is of the utmost importance. Grants will continue to be given for playing fields, community centres and youth clubs. In all this expansion we shall see that no money is wasted.

Under the Conservatives the number of teachers has increased by 6,000 a year. In the next five years we aim at least to maintain this rate and so secure the reduction in the size of classes. We are anxious that the status and rewards of the teaching profession should continue to attract men and women of high attainment and character. We are working out with the teachers representatives and local authorities an up-to-date pensions scheme.

What matters in education is the development of the child’s talents and personality, not the forwarding of a political theory. To prepare for the increasing opportunities of the modern world we need all three kinds of secondary school, grammar, modern and technical, and we must see that each provides a full and distinctive education. We shall not permit the grammar schools to be swallowed up in comprehensive schools. It is vital to build up secondary modern schools, and to develop in them special vocational courses, so that they and the technical schools offer a choice of education that matches the demands of our expanding economy. Parents should have the chance before the eleven-plus examination to discuss with teachers and the local education authority which school is likely to suit their child best. There must be proper provision for the later transfer of children from one type of school to another.

We accept the case that family allowances should be paid as long as a child is at school. A system of increased maintenance allowances will be introduced for senior pupils who might otherwise leave school before finishing an advanced course.

We shall build more technical colleges and seek the co-operation of industry in making their day courses a success. Further funds will be made available for major or specialised developments in higher technological education.

Conservatives will continue to guarantee the present freedom of the Universities from Government interference. We favour greater uniformity in the scales of County awards to University students.

GOOD HEALTH

New hospital building was completely neglected by the Socialist Government. A start is now being made. Plans have been announced and will be carried out over the next few years for the building of new hospitals, both general and mental, and for the extension and modernisation of many existing hospitals. We are making special arrangements to replace worn out and obsolete hospital plant and equipment. We shall seek to open new beds where they are most needed, to recruit extra staff and to provide better facilities. We desire to see steady progress in all forms of preventive work. These are our priorities: we rank them higher than free wigs or free aspirins.

We believe that private practice and contributory schemes have a part to play with the National Health Service and we shall therefore maintain the system of hospital amenity and hospital pay beds. We have cut away restrictions on voluntary effort in the hospital service. We shall continue to give every encouragement to voluntary work.

We welcome the increase in the provision of dental treatment, especially for mothers, children and young people, and we wish in co-operation with the profession to push forward with preventive measures.

The problems of the elderly must concern us all. In particular we shall encourage local health authorities to build up their home help services and to provide half-way houses” for the old.

We shall introduce legislation to give effective status to those, known as medical auxiliaries, who assist doctors in investigation and treatment.

We are anxious to provide the best National Health Service the country can afford. We set up the Guillebaud Committee to study the problems involved and await its recommendations.

The steady fall in infant and maternal mortality rates is a wonderful measure of the nation’s better health. Quarter by quarter the records are being broken. We are winning the fight against tuberculosis. Still a great challenge remains for all concerned with the prevention and cure of disease. We shall make sure that adequate funds are available for medical research, and in particular that hopeful lines of inquiry into cancer and polio are urgently pursued.

Air pollution is an enemy to good health, and can cause death. We wholeheartedly accept the need for a national “clean air” policy. The use of smokeless fuels must be encouraged wherever they can readily be made available, and comprehensive legislation on smoke abatement will be introduced.

PENSIONS AND BENEFITS

The nation has assumed very large obligations towards the pensioners of tomorrow; and tomorrow there will be very many more pensioners. For every 10 people of working age there are now 2 of pensionable age; but within a quarter of a century there will be 3. If during this period Britain can increase her national wealth and resources, by the policy of investment and enterprise which we advocate, these obligations can be met. But if wealth is dissipated, enterprise hampered and severe inflation brought about again by Socialist short-sightedness, the whole of our National Insurance scheme would be undermined and ultimately destroyed.

In its first year of office the Conservative Government increased virtually all social service payments. This year it has again raised pensions and benefits, and fully restored the purchasing power that Parliament intended they should have when the main rates were fixed after the war. Insurance pensioners, war pensioners and public service pensioners can be sure that a Conservative Government will continue to give the most constant attention to their interests and needs.

It is our wish to avoid any change in the present minimum pension ages. But these ages do not necessarily represent the limit of working life. With the aid of its National Advisory Committee the Government will continue to encourage the employment, without regard to age, of all who can give effective service and wish to do so.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The social policy we have outlined will make heavy demands on the energies and capacity of local authorities up and down the country. They must be strong and well-equipped if they are to carry out these responsibilities effectively.

The problems of local government finance will receive our urgent attention. They must be considered afresh in the light of present-day conditions. When the effects of the new valuations can be fully measured, we shall review the proportion of the rate burden falling upon the different groups of those who occupy property and we shall consider whether any changes are needed to remove injustice. We shall examine possible ways of supplementing the rate, including the revision of Government grants. A fundamental and continuing duty will rest upon every local Council to run their services economically and to see that ratepayers and taxpayers get full value for money.

After first seeking to establish the widest measure of common ground between local authorities of all kinds, the Conservative Government in the coming Parliament will introduce effective machinery for adapting local government to modern needs. In so doing we shall give full weight to valuable local traditions.

The proper allocation of functions must be considered at the same time. As Conservatives we believe that, consistent with efficiency and economy, local government should be as local as possible. So long as we are in office, there is no danger from proposals to strip local government of further powers. On the contrary, we shall seek to secure a wider range of interesting and constructive work for the smaller authorities. Only in this way can we continue to attract to local government the ablest men and women, and ensure that services closely touching the daily lives of everyone are not subjected to impersonal control from aloft and afar.

SCOTTISH AFFAIRS

It is our general theme that within the Union the responsibility for managing Scottish affairs shall be in the hands of Scotsmen.

We have ensured that a senior member of the Government shall be constantly in Scotland, and have already transferred from Whitehall to Scotland a variety of additional responsibilities. Next year, in accordance with the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Scottish Affairs, the Secretary of State will take over the care of Scottish roads and bridges. Where further measures of this kind are shown to be in the best interests of Scotland, we shall not hesitate to adopt them.

INDUSTRY AND EMPLOYMENT

Each year since the Unionists took office, the number of people at work in Scotland has grown and now stands at a record level. As part of our policy for maintaining full employment, we aim to attract the widest variety of new industrial enterprise to the areas where it is most needed. We shall review the facilities now available for the building of small and medium-sized factories. We shall see that Scotland continues to receive her fair share of defence and other contracts.

Scottish needs will be fully assessed in framing our new programmes of road construction and railway modernisation. Approval has been given to the building of the Whiteinch – Linthouse Tunnel under the Clyde, and we have announced that a start will be made within the next four years on the construction of a Forth Road Bridge or Tube.

COUNTRYSIDE AND HIGHLANDS

Within the framework of our agricultural policy, the special requirements of farming on Scottish hill and marginal land will receive particular attention. The measure we have passed to assist the reconditioning of farm workers’ houses must continue to be used with vigour. Still faster progress must be made in bringing water supplies to the rural areas, and the funds available for this purpose will be increased.

We are certain that the Crofting Counties can make a growing contribution to the national wealth. Every practicable step will be taken to improve the prosperity and welfare of the Highlands. We are giving particular attention to the special importance of road works.

We shall maintain, and where necessary extend, measures to modernise and increase the efficiency of the Scottish fishing fleets.

BUILDING AND REBUILDING

Never before in Scottish history has the rate of house-building been so high as in these years of Unionist Government. We fully recognise the compelling seriousness of Scotland’s housing problem. We are determined to root out the slums, redevelop the over crowded and decayed areas in our towns and cities, and rehouse the people in modern homes. We intend to ensure that this redevelopment will provide balanced communities with all the necessities for a full life. This policy, together with house-building throughout Scotland, will receive impetus from a reform of the Scottish rating system.

We propose to expand the hospital building programme and in particular to provide more accommodation for the old, the chronic sick, the mentally ill and those with tuberculosis.

We also propose to speed up the school building programme. We shall aim at the establishment of local technical colleges in Scotland, and make increased provision for developments in higher technological education in our great cities. Thus we shall train our youth of today to meet the challenge of tomorrow, and enable Scotland to maintain a proper place in the forefront of twentieth-century progress.

WELSH AFFAIRS

The appointment of a Minister for Welsh Affairs in the Conservative Government has ensured that Welsh interests and problems are represented at the highest level with a force and directness which previous methods of co-ordination had been unable to achieve. At the same time, a steady policy of administrative devolution has been followed. This policy should go on and, if possible, go further.

The Council for Wales and Monmouthshire is engaged in a detailed examination of the arrangements for conducting Government business in Wales, and we shall consider, in the light of the Council’s advice, such further changes as it may be practicable and advantageous to make in the present system.

EDUCATION

We are sympathetic to all measures designed to preserve Welsh culture and educational tradition. We shall continue to give strong encouragement and support to the teaching of the Welsh language and to the use of Welsh as a medium of instruction n schools.

EMPLOYMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Unemployment under the Conservative Government has touched the lowest levels ever recorded in Wales in time of peace. We recognise the need for imaginative and tireless attention to the stubborn problems that remain. We shall do everything in our power to improve the competitive position of the Development Area and the South Wales ports, and to attract suitable industry to North-West Wales.

The Conservative Party is determined to promote a more stable economy and fuller development of resources in rural Wales. A thorough investigation of agricultural problems and land use is now in progress and action will be guided by the recommendations which emerge.

We shall press forward with the building and reconditioning of houses and the ex tension of sewerage, water supplies and electricity. Where the improvement of now unadopted roads in livestock rearing areas would materially assist farm economy, new grants will be made available for the purpose.

We wish to increase the extent and the pace of afforestation in Wales. This can provide employment for the younger generation, not only in forestry itself, but in the many dependent industries that will grow up around the forests. Co-operation between farmers, private woodland owners and the Forestry Commission can make this policy a success.

CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS

The Constitution of the United Kingdom is the essential safeguard of our democratic government and way of life. We intend that it should retain its rightful place above Party politics.

NORTHERN IRELAND

We renew the pledge of faith to Northern Ireland. We shall not allow her position as an integral part of the United Kingdom and of the Empire to be altered in the slightest degree without the consent of the Northern Ireland Parliament.

HOUSE OF LORDS

It has long been the Conservative wish to reach a settlement regarding the reform of the House of Lords, so that it may continue to play its proper role as a Second Chamber under the Constitution. The Labour Party’s refusal to take part in the conversations we have proposed on this subject must not be assumed to have postponed reform indefinitely. We shall continue to seek the co-operation of others in reaching a solution. We believe that any changes made now should be concerned solely with the composition of the House.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

It will also be our aim to achieve all-Party agreement to amend the rules governing the redistribution of Parliamentary constituencies. We hold the opinion that a longer interval between general reviews would be more appropriate, and that mathematical equality between electorates ought not to be an over-riding consideration.

THE NATION’S CHOICE

We confidently commend to the judgement of the Electorate the policy and principles we have outlined in these pages.

It is our profound belief that the British nation has a high destiny and a glorious future before it. In stemming the tide of Communism, promoting the concord of nations and finding the way to peace, Britain has a central and crucial part to play. A great mission and adventure awaits us in the Empire and Commonwealth where rich resources can bring prosperity and plenty to all our peoples and to all our friends. At home, the high standards of life we now enjoy may be doubled within a generation, by enterprising work, by far sighted investment – and by wise leadership.

Who can believe that the Socialists today, out-moded in thought and divided in counsel, are fitted to give such leadership?

They still cling to the broken reed of nationalisation; we work for a property-owning democracy. They rely on officialdom; we rely on enterprise. Their policy is to multiply restraints; our policy is to multiply opportunities. Themselves divided, they would divide the nation. We Conservatives place our political faith in the unity of our country, in the neighbourliness of its spirit, in the vigour of its character, and in the liberties of its subjects.

The manifesto issued by the Conservative Party for the 1959 General Election.

The Next Five Years

FOREWORD

As Leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party I submit this Manifesto to the judgment of my fellow countrymen and women.

This constructive programme-indeed its very title-will show you that we do not intend to rest in the next five years upon the achievements of the past. We must both defend and develop the great gains that we have made. Our policy can be simply stated:

Prosperity and Peace.

I do not remember any period in my lifetime when the economy has been so sound and the prosperity of our people at home so widely spread; but we must also do what we can to extend a generous helping hand to the Commonwealth family and others overseas.

As for peace, it is of course the supreme purpose of all policy. I have lived through two wars and all my efforts are directed to prevent a third. Events of the last few months give me hope that we may be moving into a more constructive period. Vital international negotiations lie ahead and I ask you to continue to entrust them to a Conservative Government

Harold Macmillan

THE CONSERVATIVE RECORD

Eight years ago was a turning point in British history. The Labour Government had failed in grappling with the problems of the post-war world. Under Conservative leadership this country set out upon a new path. It is leading to prosperity and opportunity for all.

The British economy is sounder today than at any time since the first world war. Sterling has been reestablished as a strong and respected currency. Under Conservative government we have earned abroad £1,600 million more than we have spent. Our exports have reached the highest peak ever. Overseas, mostly in the Commonwealth, we are investing nearly double what we could manage eight years ago. Capital investment at home, to build for the future, is over half as large again. To match this, and make it possible, people are saving more than ever before.

The paraphernalia of controls have been swept away. The call-up is being abolished. We have cut taxes in seven Budgets, whilst continuing to develop the social services. We have provided over two million new homes and almost two million new school places, a better health service and a modern pensions plan. We have now stabilised the cost of living while maintaining full employment. We have shown that Conservative freedom works. Life is better with the Conservatives.

In the international field, thanks to the initiative of the Conservative Government, the diplomatic deadlock between East and West has now been broken. The Prime Minister’s visit to Russia in February began a sequence of events which has led to the present easing of tension. The proposed exchange of visits between President Eisenhower and Mr. Khrushchev is the most recent proof of this. It is our determination to see that this process continues and to make a success of the important negotiations which we trust will follow.

The main issues at this election are therefore simple: (1) Do you want to go ahead on the lines which have brought prosperity at home? (2) Do you want your present leaders to represent you abroad?

SHARING PROSPERITY

Conservative policy is to double the British standard of living in this generation and ensure that all sections of society share in the expansion of wealth.

While we have been in charge of the nation’s affairs, many more of the good things of life have been enjoyed by families large and small, and so long as we remain in charge they will be able to fulfil many more of their hopes and ambitions. But this is not enough. Conservatism is more than successful administration. It is a way of life. It stands for integrity as well as for efficiency, for moral values as well as for material advancement, for service and not merely self-seeking. We believe that in this spirit and as a contribution to world peace, we British must make a big and sustained effort to help others, particularly within the Commonwealth, climb nearer to our own high level of prosperity.

By raising living standards and by social reform we are succeeding in creating One Nation at home. We must now carry this policy into the wider world where the gap between the industrialised and the underdeveloped nations is still so great. This can be done by individual service, by increased trade and by investment, public and private.

Under Conservatism annual investment overseas has been more than one per cent of the national income. We want to do better than this, but to do better require.’ more than a warm heart; we must earn a bigger surplus on our trade overseas.

So at the very forefront of our programme for the next five years we place these three essential conditions of success-a strong pound, expanding trade and national unity.

1. THE POUND

Sterling is the currency in which nearly half the world’s trade is done. Our paramount aim will be to maintain international confidence in it as a sound and stable medium of exchange.

We shall use flexible monetary and other measures to achieve the right balance in the home economy, to keep the cost of living as steady as possible in the interests of the house wife, and to ensure that our goods and services are available at prices the world will pay.

2. TRADE OPPORTUNITIES

We shall concentrate on the further promotion of the export trade.

Half our trade is with the Commonwealth, and the new Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council will provide further opportunities for expansion. We shall continue to take steps to increase the flow of trade with America in which for the first time in a century our exports have exceeded our imports. We are about to join an economic association of Seven European countries; our aim remains an industrial free market embracing all Western Europe. The recent trade agreement we made with Soviet Russia is already leading to more orders for British machinery and other goods.

3. UNITY

Prosperity depends on the combined efforts of the nation as a whole. None of us can afford outmoded approaches to the problems of today, and we intend to invite the representatives of employers and trades unions to consider afresh with us the human and industrial problems that the next five years will bring.

EMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMIC CHANGE

So long as Conservative policies of sound currency and expanding trade are continued, and unity at home maintained, full employment is safe. But patches of local unemployment can be created by swift changes in markets, methods and machines. Our policy is to welcome technical progress, which can lead to dramatic increases in prosperity and leisure, but at the same time to deal with the problems it brings.

Our first major Bill in the next Parliament will be one to remodel and strengthen our powers for coping with local unemployment. This will be done in three ways-by ensuring that we can act anywhere in Britain where high local unemployment shows up; by adding to the places where we can now offer help, those where there is a clear and imminent threat of unemployment; and by offering capital grants to encourage the building of new factories where they are most needed, as an addition to subsidising the rent of Government-built factories. This policy will also feature the clearing of sites to make a district attractive to new industry.

These measures will be of particular help to Scotland and Wales. We shall continue to help the Government of Northern Ireland to deal with the special problem there.

Many individual industries have to adjust themselves to new conditions. The Government will play its part in assisting the aircraft industry to increase its sales, and will help in fostering research and development. Shipping and shipbuilding depend on expanding world trade which our policies are directed to encourage. We shall do all we can to assist them in their problems, and also intend to support the replacement of the Queen liners.

Reorganisation and re-equipment of the Lancashire cotton industry has got away to a good start. With the help of the Act we have passed it can have a prosperous future. It is a condition of grants under this Act that compensation is paid to displaced operatives.

As part of our policy of easing general mobility of labour, measures will be taken to encourage re-training. Part of the capacity of the Government Training Centres will be used to make a direct contribution towards the provision of adequate opportunities for apprenticeship. We shall also continue our support of the Industrial Training Council which we took the initiative in setting up.

Many educational, industrial and official bodies have made provision since the war for management courses. We should welcome the creation of an Advanced Business School at one of the universities.

POLICY FOR PROGRESS

We are determined to keep Britain a great and go-ahead country, leading the world in important branches of technology, and translating its technological advance into productive capacity with a high and rising rate of investment.

This is how we shall set about this task in the next five years.

1. TECHNICAL ADVANCE

One Cabinet Minister will be given the task of promoting scientific and technological development. Whilst it would be wrong to concentrate all Government scientific work into a single Ministry, this Minister for Science will have responsibility for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Medical and Agricultural Research Councils and the Nature Conservancy, the atomic energy programme, and the United Kingdom contribution to space research.

The development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes will be pressed ahead. A conference will be called of those concerned in industry and education to forward the spread and understanding of automation. We shall encourage new inventions and the development of new techniques.

Under the railway programme over 3,000 new diesels will be delivered into service by 1965, 8,000 miles of track re-laid, and electric traction increased by 60 per cent. We shall go ahead with a ’round-the-world’ telephone cable in co-operation with the Commonwealth, and maintain our lead in telecommunications by building a new large cable-laying ship.

2. MODERN ROADS

The rising volume of traffic, a yardstick of rising prosperity, must be matched by an intensive drive to build better and safer roads. Our road programme is already the biggest we have ever had in this country. Over the next five years it will be twice as big as over the last five years.

Our first priority in England and Wales will be to complete the five major schemes and motorways, which with their urban links and through routes will provide the framework of a new road system. In Scotland we mean to complete the Forth Road Bridge, the two Clyde Tunnels and the reconstruction of the Carlisle-Glasgow-Stirling trunk road, and to speed up the programme of Highland road development.

At the same time there will be a country-wide drive to improve the existing road net work and new schemes to relieve congestion in the towns. Severn and Tay Bridges will both be started.

3. THE LAND

Farming in Britain today is efficient and prosperous. Great progress has been made possible by our system of long-term price guarantees and the payment of grants for modern buildings, equipment and techniques. This policy will be developed so as to ensure stability to farmer and farm worker.

We give a pledge that the long-term assurances to agriculture contained in our 1957 Act will continue for the life-time of the next Parliament. In the light of experience, we shall consider, in close consultation with the leaders of the industry, any improvements and developments in agricultural policy including the small farmers scheme.

We shall continue to promote the well-being of the British fishing industry.

We confirm that horticulture must have support comparable with that given to agriculture generally. We shall continue to use the tariff as the main instrument of protection. Legislation will be passed to provide improvement grants of £7l/2 million and to help reform horticultural marketing, including a streamlining of the operation of the central London markets.

In the next five years, 300,000 acres will be planted by the Forestry Commission. Encouragement will continue to be given to private woodland owners. We attach importance to the prosperity of this industry, which would be further assured by the establishment of an effective marketing organisation.

There will be continued improvement in amenities for families who live on the land-a further extension of water, sewerage and electricity supplies, and better housing and schools. We have set up a Committee to help us solve the problem of public transport in the country side.

4. NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES

We are utterly opposed to any extension of nationalisation, by whatever means. We shall do everything possible to ensure improved commercial standards of operation and less centralisation in those industries already nationalised. In addition, we shall review the situation in civil aviation, and set up a new licensing authority to bring a greater measure of freedom to nationally and privately owned airlines.

To further the development of the Post Office as a modern business, we propose to separate its current finances from the Exchequer. Direct Ministerial responsibility to Parliament and the status of Post Office employees as Civil Servants will be retained.

5. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

In addition to our proposals regarding the Minister for Science, we shall from time to time make such changes in the functions of Ministers as are necessary to suit modern needs.

We shall maintain our policy of giving special regard to the distinctive rights and problems of Scotland and Wales. Transfer of administrative work from London will be carried further as opportunity allows.

We look forward to reforming and strengthening the structure of local democracy, in the light of reports from the Local Government Commissions for England and Wales.

The whole administrative system of town and country planning will be reviewed afresh with the aim of simplifying procedure, achieving improvements and reducing delays.

OPPORTUNITY AND SECURITY

Conservatives want everybody to have a fuller opportunity to earn more and to own more-and to create a better life for themselves and their children.

We shall proceed in the next Parliament with our policy of reducing whenever possible the burden of taxation.

We shall encourage facilities for the small investor to have a stake in British industry.

1. EDUCATION

During the next five years we shall concentrate on producing a massive enlargement of educational opportunity at every level. The necessary work is already in hand. Four programmes, each the biggest of its kind ever undertaken in Britain, are gathering momentum.

Training colleges for teachers, which will now provide a three-year course, are being expanded by nearly two-thirds so as to get rid of over-large classes; the number of students at universities is to be further increased by at least one-third; new technical college buildings are opening at the rate of one a week; and we shall spend some £400 million by 1965 to improve the quality of our school buildings.

We shall defend the grammar schools against doctrinaire Socialist attack, and see that they are further developed. We shall bring the modern schools up to the same high standard. Then the choice of schooling for children can be more flexible and less worrying for parents. This is the right way to deal with the problem of the ‘eleven-plus’. Already, up and down the country, hundreds of new modern schools are showing the shape of things to come. Our programme will open up the opportunities that they provide for further education and better careers to every boy and girl; and by 1965 we expect that at least 40 per cent will be staying on after fifteen.

We have appointed a Committee to review the system of awards to students from public funds, including the present ‘means test’, and improvements will be made when it has reported.

2. GOOD HOUSING

Our housing policy, so successful in the past, will be pressed ahead with vigour in the future so as to deal with up-to-date priorities These are the clearance of the slums, the relief of overcrowding, and the needs of the old. By 1965 we intend to re-house at least another million people from the slums.

The local authorities will continue to play a big part along with private enterprise in meeting housing needs; but we reject as costly and bureaucratic nonsense the Socialist plan to take into council ownership millions of privately rented houses.

In the next Parliament we shall take no further action to decontrol rents. More houses must be built and recent rent legislation given time to have its full beneficial effect in increasing house-room.

In the last eight years, 750,000 families have bought their own new homes, and we want to see the process go on. Also, up to £100 million will be advanced by the Government to building societies for loans on older houses-and we shall consider increasing this figure if need be.

3. GOOD HEALTH

As part of a major policy to promote good health, we shall not only clear the slums, but also wage war on smog by effective use of the Clean Air Act, and tackle the pollution of rivers and estuaries. We shall offer vaccination against polio to everyone up to the age of forty and to all specially vulnerable groups. Prevention of accidents on roads and in the home will be subjects of sustained campaigns.

On the curative side there will be a big programme of hospital building. We already have sixteen new general or mental hospitals and some fifty major extension schemes under way; over the next five years our target is to double the present capital programme.

The level of doctors’ and dentists’ pay in the health services will be considered as soon as the Royal Commission has reported. We shall also be ready to consider with representatives of the professions their status in the health services.

Local authorities will be encouraged to develop their health and welfare services. We shall set up a National Council for Social Work Training to help recruit and train the extra social workers who will be needed.

4. SECURITY AND RETIREMENT

The rates of retirement pensions, which we have increased three times, have now a real buying power over ten shillings higher than in 1951. We pledge ourselves to ensure that pensioners continue to share in the good things which a steadily expanding economy will bring.

Our new pensions scheme will put national insurance on a sound financial footing, concentrate Exchequer help on those with the lowest earnings, and enable men and women with higher earnings to make increased provision for old age. At the same time, we are encouraging the growth of sound occupational pension schemes.

The weekly amount that can be earned without deduction of pension, by those who have retired or by widowed mothers, will be further increased.

We shall continue the preferential treatment which our recent legislation has provided for widows and their children.

Those disabled in the service of their country will remain the subject of our special care. Particular attention will be given to providing more suitable vehicles for the badly disabled.

We shall continue to ensure that those dependent on national assistance have a share in the country’s increasing prosperity.

Not only will our housing programme cater more and more for the needs of the old, but we shall also try to make it easier for them to go on living at home. For example, better provision will be made for a ‘meals on wheels service for the old and infirm. The extension of the home help service and the provision of holiday rest homes will be encouraged.

5. THE USE OF LEISURE

Two out of three families in the country now own TV, one in three has a car or motor-cycle, twice as many are taking holidays away from home-these are welcome signs of the increasing enjoyment of leisure. They are the fruits of our policies.

But at the same time all this represents a challenge to make the growth of leisure more purposeful and creative, especially for young people.

Our policy of opportunity will therefore be extended. In particular, we propose to reorganise and expand the Youth Service. Measures will be taken to encourage Youth Leadership and the provision of attractive youth clubs, more playing fields and better facilities for sport. We shall do more to support the arts including the living theatre. Improvements will be made in museums and galleries and in the public library service. Particular attention will be given to the needs of provincial centres.

6. LIBERTY UNDER THE LAW

We believe that it is by emphasis on the home, enlargement of educational opportunity, development of services for youth and a spread of the responsibilities of property that national character can be strengthened and moral standards upheld. In addition, we shall revise some of our social laws, for example those relating to betting and gaming and to clubs and licensing, which are at present full of anomalies and lead to abuse and even corruption.

It will continue to be our policy to protect the citizens, irrespective of creed or colour, against lawlessness.

We intend to review the system of criminal justice and to undertake penal reforms which will lead offenders to abandon a life of crime. A scheme for compensating the victims of violent crime for personal injuries will be considered.

The Legal Aid and Advice Acts will be extended to remaining courts and to certain tribunals, and the present income and capital limits will be reviewed to ensure that help is not denied to anyone who needs it.

We shall appoint a Committee to review the working of the Companies Act in the light of present conditions. Action will be taken to protect the public against the sale of sub-standard goods and to amend the law on weights and measures.

We mean to make quite sure that the Press have proper facilities for reporting the proceedings of local authorities.

In all these matters we shall act to strengthen Britain’s traditional way of life, centred upon the dignity and liberty of the individual.

OUR DUTY OVERSEAS

Whilst one hundred million people in Europe alone have, since the war, been forcibly absorbed into the Communist bloc and system, six times that number have been helped to nationhood within the British Commonwealth. It is our duty to ourselves and to the cause of freedom everywhere to see that the facts are known, and that misrepresentation about British ‘colonialism’ does not go unchallenged. Progressive expansion of overseas information services will remain our policy.

The Conservative Government will continue to work out in the Commonwealth the pattern of a community of free and sovereign nations. Next year Nigeria, and before long the West Indies, will acquire independence.

We shall discuss with our partners in the Commonwealth plans to deal with the status of members too small to be fully self-supporting and self-governing.

An advisory Commission, under Lord Monckton’s chairmanship, is being set up in preparation for the review of the Constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland which is to take place in 1960. Our central aim in multi-racial countries is to build communities which protect minority rights and are free of all discrimination on grounds of race or colour. If democracy is to be secured, education must underpin the franchise; and the rapid expansion of education is the Commonwealth’s most pressing need. We therefore undertake to increase training facilities for teachers and to make more English books available; and we will play a leading part in financing the new Commonwealth scheme of exchange scholar ships and fellowships.

We emphasise the part that individual service can play. The need for teachers, doctors and technicians of every kind is almost unlimited, and an appeal to the adventurous spirit of youth must be made. We shall encourage the professions and industry to help those willing to do so to serve for a few years in the overseas Commonwealth without prejudice to their careers at home.

Further British capital will be made available through loans and grants for sound Commonwealth development. The Colombo Plan and other schemes of technical co operation will be assisted to the full. We shall back the proposal for a new International Development Association. The Conservative Government will continue to support the United Nations’ agencies in relieving poverty and combating disease, and will substantially increase the British contribution to the United Nations’ Special Fund for economic development.

POLICY FOR PEACE

The next few years and even months will be critical and perhaps decisive. As a result of our policies the great powers of the world have closer contacts both personal and official than for a long time. Provided we use flexibility of method without abandoning firmness of principle, a great opportunity lies before us. Peace with justice is our aim.

1. UNITED NATIONS

Peace cannot finally be secure until there is a world instrument with the power and the will to deal with aggression and ensure that international agreements are carried out. In view of the deep divisions between East and West, this is necessarily a long-term aim. We shall continue trying to build up the United Nations’ strength and influence, but recognise that progress in improving East-West relations is an essential preliminary. Meanwhile, we shall give all our support to the work of conciliation and mediation which the United Nations machinery is well fitted to carry Out.

2. RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA

We are opposed to the Communist system as being wholly contrary to the basic principles of our freedom and religious faith. We believe that if peace can be preserved these principles will not only survive in our own part of the world but spread. Owing to the destructiveness of modern warfare both sides have in common a greater interest in peace than ever before. If humanity is to survive both must therefore learn to live together. With this aim we have worked for a steady improvement in our relations with the Soviet Union. The steps we have taken to expand trade, promote personal contacts and discussions and improve means of communication will be pursued.

3. OUR ALLIANCES

Meanwhile it remains vitally important to maintain our defensive alliances throughout the world. In Europe while we will work for the inspection and reduction of armaments in areas to be agreed, we are opposed to plans which would alter the military balance and so weaken N.A.T.O.

We have sought to keep the alliance united on matters of principle and flexible in its diplomacy. For example, over Berlin we are resolved that the two and a quarter million West Berliners shall preserve their freedom to choose their way of life. Subject to that, we are ready to work Out new arrangements to improve the existing situation.

4. THE ARMED FORCES

Our armed forces are being reorganised on a voluntary basis and extensively re-equipped to suit them to the needs of the present day. The pay and living conditions of the Services have been vastly improved and we intend to keep them in line with standards in civilian life.

5. DISARMAMENT

The power of modern weapons is appalling; but the fact that a nuclear war would mean mutual destruction is the most powerful deterrent against war. It is, however, war itself, not a particular weapon, which is the true enemy. Our aim, therefore, is to move forward by balanced stages towards the abolition of all nuclear weapons and the reduction of the other weapons and armed forces to a level which will rule out the possibility of an aggressive war. In doing this we must stick to the principle that disarmament can be effective only if it is subject to a proper system of international inspection and control. To. this end, we have just reached agreement with the Soviet Union on a new body to consider disarmament and report to the United Nations. We shall place before it our comprehensive proposals.

6. NUCLEAR TESTS

On British initiative the Conference of experts met last year and reached agreement on some aspects of controlling the suspension of nuclear tests. This was followed by the present Geneva Conference and no nuclear weapon tests have taken place since the Russian tests in November 1958. At the Conference, effective systems have been worked out for supervising a ban on nuclear tests in the air and under water, though more work is still to be done on supervising a ban on tests underground.

We have three objectives, achievement of each of which would be a great prize:

(i) The end of atmospheric tests and all that that implies. Since agreement in principle has been reached about the feasibility of controlling a ban on atmospheric tests, we see no reason why any such tests need ever be undertaken again by the nuclear powers. It was in this hope that we suspended our tests.

(ii) The establishment of the first experiment in a system of international control, which may lead to effective measures of disarmament, both nuclear and conventional.

(iii) The abolition under effective control of tests of all kinds.

This is a realistic and constructive approach. It maintains British influence in world affairs unimpaired and paves the way for wider agreements in the future.

THE ALTERNATIVE

Vital issues of defence and foreign policy divide the Socialists in Opposition and would continue to divide them if returned to power.

Remember their record at home! What have they to offer today that was not tried and found wanting when they last held office?

The country is disillusioned with nationalisation; but a Labour Government would extend it. People are glad to be free of controls; but a Labour Government would clamp them on again. Everyone welcomes stable prices and lower taxes; but a return to Socialism is bound to mean a return to inflation and higher taxes. Britain lives by her trade; but Socialism would disrupt business at home and undermine confidence abroad.

The Socialists have learnt nothing in their period of Opposition save new ways to gloss over their true intentions. Their policies are old-fashioned and have no relevance to the problems of the modern world.

Our policies look to the future and offer the best hope of prosperity and peace with justice.

The manifesto issued by the Conservative Party at the 1964 General Election.

“PROSPERITY WITH A PURPOSE”

Foreward

by Sir Alec Douglas-Home

As Leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party, I submit this Manifesto to my fellow countrymen and women.

Its object is to declare the principles for which Conservatives stand and to show how we propose to translate them into action. Part of it is a record of achievement, and that is deliberate. For work well done carries conviction that our policies for the future will succeed. Our philosophy is to use what is good from the past to create a future which is better.

But these pages are not an introduction to an easy, sheltered life. No country has an inherited right to wealth or influence. Prosperity has to be worked for. The future will be assured only if our people recognise the simple economic rules which must be kept by a country dependent on earning its living in a competitive world. This manifesto points the way.

Throughout, you will find a constant theme. It is the creation of a social and economic climate in which men and women can develop their personalities and talents to their country’s benefit as well as their own. Conservatives believe that a centralised system of direction cramps the style of the British people. Only by trusting the individual with freedom and responsibility shall we gain the vitality to keep our country great.

Such greatness is not measured in terms of prosperity alone. What counts is the purpose to which we put prosperity. The Conservative purpose is clear from our record and from our programme. It is to raise the quality of our society and its influence for good in the world. We are using the growth of wealth to expand opportunities for the young, to provide more generously for the old and the sick and the handicapped, to aid developing countries still battling against widespread poverty, and to maintain the strength on which national security and our work for peace depend.

In a world as dangerous as that in which we live it can make no sense whatever for Britain unilaterally to discard her strength. We therefore reject the idea of giving up our nuclear arm. We adopt instead a balanced policy of strength and conciliation: strength to be used to stop wars before they start; conciliation to reach areas of agreement with the Soviet Union and the Communist world which will replace tension and potential conflict. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was one such achievement. We mean to work for more until the danger of war is eliminated. The way will be rough but we will persevere. I ask you to conclude that we should retain British power and influence so that they may be used for such high purpose.

In short, I trust that the values for which Conservatives stand and the policies which we intend to follow commend themselves to the imagination and the common sense of the British people.

WORKING FOR PEACE

Our policy of peace through strength has brought Britain safely through years of tension and danger. it contributes to the security of the free world. It provides the realistic basis for better relations between East and West. It keeps this country in her rightful place at the centre of international affairs.

The Socialists, by contrast, would relegate Britain to the sidelines. They are as always deeply divided on international and defence issues so divided that they dared not even discuss them at their last party conference lest an open quarrel should break out. Nuclear abdication is the only policy on which they can unite.

Diplomacy and Disarmament

The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 has been welcomed throughout the world. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have acknowledged how much it owed to the Conservative Government’s initiative and perseverance. But if Labour Party policy had been carried out, and our country had no longer been a nuclear power, there would have been no British role to play. We should have been without influence and without voice. The Conservative Party will not cast away by unilateral action this vital contribution to Britain’s diplomacy and defence.

We are ready and anxious not only to stop all tests but to discard further armaments – if other nations agree to do the same and give convincing proof that they are doing so step by step with us. That is what we are trying to achieve in the general disarmament negotiations. That is what we pledge ourselves to work for.

Following upon the test ban treaty, the Russians, Americans and ourselves have this year agreed to limit production of fissile materials for military purposes. in accord with our allies, we shall seek other areas of agreement with the Soviet Union-for example, on non-dissemination of nuclear weapons and observation posts against surprise attack. It would be wrong to raise false hopes, for the Russians are stubborn negotiators and these are difficult matters. But we are determined to maintain the momentum of constructive discussion which has already done much to bring nearer an end to the cold war.

Defence and Deterrence

A Conservative Government will firmly uphold Britain’s world-wide interests and obligations. In recent months we have been called upon to defend Malaysia and South Arabia and to render assistance in East Africa and Cyprus. These crises have demonstrated the effectiveness of our defence organisation and the skill and spirit of our fighting Services. We shall continue to ensure that they are equipped to respond swiftly and successfully to challenge.

Over 90 per cent. of our defence effort is devoted to conventional arms. But in the nuclear age no money spent on increasing the size or improving the conventional equipment of our forces could by itself secure the defence of these islands. The only effective defence is the certainty in the mind of any enemy that there is no prize he could ever win by our defeat which could compensate him for the destruction he would suffer in the process. Conservatives do not accept the view that we could never be threatened on our own, or that an enemy will always assume we shall have allies rushing to our side.

Britain must in the ultimate resort have independently controlled nuclear power to deter an aggressor. We possess this power today. Only under a Conservative Government will we possess it in the future.

We have put into practice the concept of interdependence within the Atlantic alliance by assigning our V-bombers to Nato but subject to our right to deploy them at discretion if supreme national interests are at stake. The Polaris submarines when operational will be assigned in the same way and subject to the same reservation.

Western Unity and the U.N.

We remain convinced that the political and economic problems of the West can best be solved by an Atlantic partnership between America and a united Europe. Only in this way can Europe develop the wealth and power, and play the part in aiding others, to which her resources and history point the way.

Entry into the European Economic Community is not open to us in existing circumstances, and no question of fresh negotiations can arise at present. We shall work, with our EFTA partners, through the Council of Europe, and through Western European Union, for the closest possible relations with the Six consistent with our Commonwealth ties.

The principles laid down in the Charter of the United Nations are as valid today as when we signed it. We shall use our influence to see that these principles are implemented. Our contribution to the U.N.’s economic and social agencies and to its work of conciliation and peace-making is second only to that of the United States. We shall work for the establishment of its present peace-keeping machinery on a more permanent basis.

THE ROLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH

The Prime Ministers’ Conference this summer reflected the vigour and increased the strength of the modern Commonwealth. In a few weeks’ time it will comprise 20 nations 13 of whom will have achieved their independence since the Conservatives took office.

This historic evolution is now reaching its final stages. Of our remaining dependencies many are well on the road to sovereignty. A number have multi-racial populations presenting special problems. Others are too small to bear the burdens of separate statehood. In each case we shall work for a fair and practical solution which will protect the interests of the peoples concerned.

The organisation of government in this country and the machinery of Commonwealth co-operation will be brought into line with new conditions.

We propose next year to merge the Colonial Office with the Commonwealth Relations Office, and it and the Foreign Office will be staffed from a single Diplomatic Service.

We shall give full support to the Commonwealth Secretariat whose establishment was agreed at the Prime Ministers’ Conference. We also intend to set up a Commonwealth Foundation to develop contacts between professional bodies in the Commonwealth, and will give increased assistance to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Trade and Aid

Today the Commonwealth faces two world challenges. One is political the opportunity to show by example that peoples of different races can work together in amity and confidence. The other is economic the need to build up in developing territories more prosperous and hopeful conditions. We shall succeed in the political task only if we also succeed in the economic. For it is the gap in living standards between the industrialised and the developing that gives racial conflict its cutting edge.

The prime need of developing countries is for trading opportunities, and here Britain leads the world. No country is so liberal in providing them with access to her markets. At the United Nations trade and development conference this year we played a crucial role in securing the adoption of recommendations to help them expand, export and earn. Our consistent aim is wider world trade and an improved world monetary system to sustain it.

Under the Conservatives since 1951, £1,400m has been provided in Government aid, preponderantly to the Commonwealth. Last year it reached the record level of £175m, more than double what it was six years earlier. Private investment has been providing substantial amounts. As the British economy expands, so the level of aid will progressively rise. We shall also support voluntary endeavour, of which the Freedom from Hunger Campaign has been a splendid example.

Technical Co-operation

But aid is more than money. Just as vital is the sharing of knowledge and experience. We have multiplied our technical assistance more than sixfold in six years. We set up the new Department of Technical Co-operation in 1961 to give impetus to this work.

More than 50,000 students from developing countries were in full-time courses in Britain last year, while some 19,000 British men and women were serving in the developing countries under our Government 5 auspices. An important feature has been the growing opportunity for young people to find scope for their energy and idealism in voluntary overseas service. Through the initiative of voluntary organisations, and with increasing Government support, the numbers are rising fast.

At the 1964 Commonwealth Education Conference we offered a big increase in capital assistance for high education in the Commonwealth during the coming five years. We shall also vigorously pursue our proposals for a Commonwealth medical conference, and for increasing Commonwealth co-operation in development projects and in the training of administrators.

In these ways we shall seek both to help the developing countries and to strengthen Commonwealth links.

GROWTH WITHOUT INFLATION

In 13 years of Conservative government the living standards of the British people have improved more than in the whole of the previous half-century.

The working population is up by two million and over 98 per cent. are in jobs. Rising incomes and lower taxes have made possible a spectacular increase in spending on the essentials, the comforts and what were once regarded as the luxuries of life. At the same time personal savings have grown from £100m in 1951 to nearly £2,ooom last year-providing funds for the modernisation of Britain, security for the individual, and substance to the Conservative concept of a property-owning democracy.

We do not claim that these benefits are the gift of the Government. What we do claim is that the Government has created conditions in which individuals by enterprise and thrift have gained these benefits for themselves and the country. These are the conditions we shall maintain.

An Expanding Economy

We shall give first priority to our policy for economic growth, so that Britain’s national wealth can expand by a steady 4 per cent. per year.

We recognise that this involves a high level of imports, and we are prepared to draw on our reserves whilst our exports, both visible and invisible, achieve a balance with them. By new arrangements with the International Monetary Fund, the European banks and the United States, we have strengthened the defences of sterling against speculative attack which could put a brake on progress.

But the long-term problem of the balance of payments can only be solved by bringing our trading economy to the highest pitch of competitiveness and modern efficiency.

Exports and Prices

We have improved the services provided for export firms, given them the fullest credit insurance facilities in the world, and established the National Export Council to aid their efforts. But basically our capacity to sell abroad depends on competitive prices.

No country has succeeded in keeping post-war prices completely steady, but Britain in recent years has done far better than most. Our aim is an economy in which earnings rise in step with productivity and do not outpace it. An effective and fair incomes policy is crucial to the achievement of sustained growth without inflation. We shall take a further initiative to secure wider acceptance and effective implementation of such a policy. In addition, a downward pressure on prices will be increasingly exerted by Conservative measures to stimulate industrial competition.

N.E.D.C. and Planning

We have set up the National Economic Development Council, bringing together Government, management and unions in a co-operative venture to improve our economic performance. This has been followed by the establishment of Economic Development Committees for a number of individual industries.

N.E.D.C. gives reality to the democratic concept of planning by partnership. In contemporary politics the argument is not for or against planning. All human activity involves planning. The question is: how is the planning to be done? By consent or by compulsion?

The Labour Party’s policy of extended State ownership and centralised control would be economically disastrous and incompatible with the opportunities and responsibilities of a free society. Conservatives believe that a democratic country as mature as ours must be self-disciplined and not State-controlled, law-abiding without being regulation-ridden, co-operative but not coerced.

MODERNISATION AND COMPETITION

Record progress is being made in modernising industry. Today capital investment in new factories, construction, plant and equipment is twice as high as when the Socialists left office. Our financial incentives for this purpose are now the best in the world, and we shall see that tax policies continue to stimulate industrial innovation.

Science and Industry

Britain’s total spending on civil scientific research and development has more than trebled since the mid-1950s. In this effort Government and industry have shared.

We shall further improve the organisation for promoting civil science by setting up new research councils. An industrial research and development authority will be formed to undertake basic and applied work of importance to industry.

Economic efficiency and increasing leisure have always depended on supplementing human with mechanical effort, and increasingly mechanisation must extend to the control systems which link and co-ordinate the machines. It is an important feature of our policy to encourage the wider spread of automated equipment. The National Research Development Corporation, with extended powers and finance, will be helped to sponsor the application of such new techniques in industry.

Whilst recognising the Government’s obligation to assist in these ways, we are convinced that the rapidly changing world of industrial technology is the last place for Socialism. It calls for a flexibility, and a response to new ideas and requirements, which a system of free competitive enterprise is best suited to provide. The Conservative Party is utterly opposed to any extension of nationalisation, whether outright or piecemeal. We propose to complete the denationalisation of steel. Industries in public ownership will continue to be developed as modern businesses.

Competition and the Consumer

In private industry and trade we intend to stimulate the forces of competition which make for efficiency and bring down prices. Abolition of resale price maintenance, save in cases where it can be shown to serve the public interest, will have this effect on retail trade. In the next Parliament our first major Bill will be one to strengthen the Monopolies Commission, speed up its work, and enlarge the Government’s powers to implement its recommendations. It will enable us to deal with any merger or takeover bid likely to lead to harmful monopoly conditions.

We shall reform the Companies Act, so as to take account of modern developments and give added protection to investors.

Competition and free choice are the customers’ most effective safeguards. We welcome the many signs of growing consumer awareness and influence, and have established and will finance the Consumer Council as a spokesman for these interests. We shall follow up our reform of hire purchase and weights and measures by improving merchandise marks legislation, and by strengthening the Sale of Goods Act so as to secure greater protection for shoppers in such matters as warranties and guarantees.

The restrictions on shop hours, which are particularly inconvenient for the growing number of women at work, are being reviewed. Our aim is to achieve greater flexibility in the present arrangements, while maintaining necessary safeguards for shop-workers.

FULL EMPLOYMENT

We believe that a growing and competitive economy must redeploy its resources to meet or anticipate changes in markets, methods and machines. But the interests of those who work in industry must be fully safeguarded in the process. Otherwise responses to change could act as a brake on modernisation and rising standards.

Redundancy and Retraining

The Government is helping industry to plan its manpower requirements ahead so that unnecessary redundancies are avoided. Our new Contracts of Employment Act gives employees for the first time statutory rights to a minimum period of notice. We attach great importance to the wider extension of arrangements whereby redundant workers are compensated by their employers through severance payments.

In the next Parliament we shall reform the unemployment benefit under the national insurance scheme. Men and women with earnings above a minimum level will be able to receive for months a graduated supplement to their flat-rate benefit. Their total benefit will thus be more closely related to their normal standard of living, and those unable to find a new job right away will be protected against a sharp fall in income. Some workers who fall ill may suffer comparable financial hardship, and a similar change will be made in sickness benefit. Our detailed scheme will be put forward when we have completed our discussions with representatives of the interests concerned.

We are at present carrying through in Government training centres a doubling of the facilities for retraining men and women in new skills. In addition, the industrial training boards which are being set up under our new legislation will stimulate industries particularly those that are expanding to provide greatly improved systems of apprenticeship, training and retraining.

Regional Development

Our programme of regional development will expand employment prospects, make the maximum use of national resources and spread prosperity more evenly throughout the United Kingdom. In this way, the potentialities of each region can be developed to the utmost and at the same time its characteristics retained.

This programme combines the provision of better communications, up-to-date social services and improved amenities with generous inducements to build new factories, install modern equipment and provide fresh jobs where they are most required. Its object is to make each region a more efficient place to work in and a more attractive place to live in. Our studies for this purpose now cover Wales, Scotland and most of England.

In central Scotland and north-east England we are already carrying out programmes without precedent in conception and scale. Their impact is evident in the renewed activity and growing buoyancy of these areas which are looking, not towards the problems of the past, but to the technological developments of the future. Thus the places which pioneered the first industrial revolution will become full partners in the second.

In south-east England our programme will ensure proper development to meet the needs of the natural growth of population. New cities and towns and urban expansions will be built to provide work and homes away from the capital. Consultations are now being held about the location and size of these developments, which will be carried out without prejudicing growth elsewhere. We are determined to check the drift to the south and to achieve a sound balance over the whole country.

A Conservative Government will continue to control immigration from overseas according to the numbers which our crowded country and its industrial regions can absorb. We shall ensure that the working of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which we passed in 1962 against bitter Labour Party opposition, is fair and effective.

Industrial Relations

All these measures to protect and expand employment should help reduce industrial disputes. They also highlight the lack of justification in present conditions for many restrictive practices of labour.

The trade unions have a vital responsibility to diminish such handicaps to Britain’s competitive strength. We shall continue to seek their co-operation in matters of common interest and to work in partnership with them through N.E.D.C.

Recent decisions in the courts have thrown into prominence aspects of the law affecting trade unions and employers’ associations. The law has not been reviewed since the beginning of the century, and it will be the subject of an early inquiry.

BRITAIN ON THE MOVE

We shall press ahead with improving and reshaping the transport system to fit the needs of a modern Britain.

The first essential is to make the best possible provision for the increase in private motoring which prosperity brings. Since the 1959 election we have carried out a £600m programme of new road building. During the next five years £150m will be devoted to this purpose.

On our present plans the first thousand miles of Britain’s motorway system will be completed in 1973. In addition ~ shall improve hundreds of miles of trunk roads. A modern system of road signs will be installed, and we shall concentrate on measures to increase safety.

We are putting particular emphasis on reducing traffic congestion in towns. In the longer term, we shall apply the principles of the Buchanan Report to comprehensive campaigns of town replanning. As an immediate step, expenditure on urban roads will be trebled. In London big improvements in traffic flow have resulted from overall management by the Traffic Management Unit: we shall arrange with the other major conurbations for the same methods to be applied by them.

Public Transport

We shall complete the Victoria Underground line, and will encourage the development and use of new techniques for public transport in the towns. In six rural areas pilot schemes are being started to provide better bus services in some cases with financial support from the Government and county councils. fly mid-1965 we hope to extend’ such schemes to other parts of the countryside.

Under the Beeching Plan we are producing an economic railway system able to attract suitable traffic off the roads by its own efficiency. A faster and more reliable rail service is increasingly being provided on the busy main lines for passengers and freight, and millions of pounds have already been knocked off the railway losses. We shall not consent to the closure of any service where this will damage economic development or cause undue hardship. Alternative bus services, with facilities for luggage. will be provided where necessary.

Sea and Air

Britain’s ports are now entering a new era when great development schemes will be carried through to the benefit of our trade. We have supported our shipowners against foreign interference and passed the Shipping Contracts Act which will protect British interests. We affirm our faith in the future of the shipbuilding industry whose current prospects have been much improved by our credits scheme.

We intend to press ahead with negotiations for the Channel Tunnel so that an early start can be made.

In developing efficient air communications we believe that a combination of public and private enterprise is best. We shall encourage the growth of a network of internal air services and airports to meet local needs.

PROGRESS ON THE LAND

On our farms productivity has been rising by 5 per cent. a year. Output is approaching twice what it was before the war. Modernisation is proceeding apace under the Farm Improvement Scheme and the Small Farmers Scheme.

British agriculture is efficient and competitive, and makes an indispensable contribution to our economic and social strength.

The Conservative Government has evolved a system of support which has provided a sound basis for this progress. It is being adapted now to changed world conditions. Agreements have been reached with our overseas suppliers to regulate imports of cereals and bacon, and we shall continue to work for a stable market for meat. These policies are in line with our desire to conclude world-wide agreements for key commodities. Together with the improvement we shall bring about in marketing arrangements for home products, they will assure British farmers of a fair share of a growing market.

In developing our policies we shall continue to uphold the principles of the 1947 and 1957 Agriculture Acts. With imports regulated and home production more effectively related to market needs through standard quantity systems, greater weight can be given to farmers’ returns at future price reviews. The long-term assurances under our 1957 Act will continue throughout the life of the next Parliament.

Our new deal for horticulture will strengthen the industry’s ability to compete. We offer substantial aid to growers to adopt the most up-to-date production and marketing methods. Horticultural markets in major cities will be rebuilt, and the sites better related to modern traffic conditions. This will help to get the produce to housewives quicker, fresher and cheaper.

Forestry and Fisheries

The Forestry Commission will carry through a long-term programme of planting. especially in areas where expansion can bring social and employment benefits. We will continue our help to private woodland owners.

We have extended British fishery limits in accordance with the recently negotiated convention, and will further promote the technical progress and prosperity of the fishing industry.

Powers of river authorities to ensure proper conservation of fisheries will be extended.

With the aid of river authorities and the new Water Resources Board we shall develop a national policy of water conservation, so ensuring adequate supplies to meet increasing demand.

WAYS AND MEANS

The programme we propose for the next five years is an ambitious one; but we know it can be achieved, for it is based on 13 years of solid progress. It embraces rising investment in the modernisation of Britain, on the lines we have described, and rising expenditure on the social services.

The money must be found from two sources: the savings of the nation and the contributions of taxpayer and ratepayer. We have never disguised that the cost will be heavy. No programme worthy of this country can be cheap. But it must be kept within bounds, and related to the growth of the national income. Our proposals are based on our target of a 4 per cent. annual growth rate, and on maintaining a high level of savings.

One thing is quite certain. The Labour Party’s promises would cost many hundreds of millions more than our programme. At the same time their policies would discourage enterprise and savings. The result could only be renewed inflation and rapidly rising taxes.

Incentives to Save

To secure a still higher volume of savings, a Conservative Government will introduce new incentives. In particular we aim to devise a contractual savings scheme, giving attractive benefits to those who undertake to save regularly over a period of years.

We shall also encourage the successful efforts which are being made to widen the field of share ownership.

Taxpayer and Ratepayer

We shall continue to reform the tax system, both on companies and on individuals, to make it less complicated and fairer in its incidence.

Local authority services are expanding in response to public need and demand, but in some instances and areas the cost is outpacing the capacity of householders to pay. We recognise that a reform of the rates is required. The precise scale and methods will be determined as soon as our full inquiries, now in progress, are complete. These inquiries which could not have been undertaken effectively until revaluation had been carried through-cover the whole rating system, potential sources of local authority finance, the impact of rates now, and the current Exchequer grants.

In the light of these studies we shall ensure that the cost of local government, and particularly of education, is fairly apportioned between ratepayers and taxpayers, as well as making changes in the system of grants. In carrying out these and any other necessary reforms, we shall bear specially in mind those householders living on small fixed incomes.

OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUTH

Education is the most rapidly developing feature of our social outlay. Its share of the expanded national wealth has risen since 1951 from 3 per cent. to 5 per cent., and will go on rising. This reflects our view of education as at once a right of the child, a need of society, and a condition of economic efficiency. It also matches a tremendous upsurge in educational ambition and attainment.

THE PARTY MANIFESTOS

Our aim is to see that suitable education or training is available to every boy and girl up to at least 18. These are the steps we shall take:

1. The minimum school-leaving age will be raised to 16 for all who enter secondary school after the summer of 1967. This, which we looked forward to in the 1944 Education Act, is not to be just “another year at school”. The whole school course will be refashioned to give a wider and deeper education.

2. More and more who have the ability to benefit will stay on to 17 and 18 and go forward to higher education. This will be made possible by our plans for the universities, colleges of advanced technology, higher technical institutions and teacher training colleges. There will be places for 100,000 extra students by 1968, and for a steadily growing number after that.

3. For those leaving school to start work at once, we shall further develop the Youth Employment Service and encourage the appointment by schools of careers advisers of high calibre, as well as improving industrial apprenticeship and training. Steps will be taken to increase the number of industrial workers under 18 who are released during the day to attend technical and other courses. We shall continue our great expansion of technical colleges.

Buildings and Teachers

The building of new schools and the modernising of existing ones will be pressed ahead. The rising school population will put heavy pressure on our resources, but we are determined to devote a share of each year’s programme to improving conditions in the older primary schools.

The training colleges will be producing by 1970 three times as many new teachers as in 1958, and the larger numbers going on to higher education will mean more teachers later on. We shall sustain our successful campaign for the return of qualified married women to teaching. Improved machinery will be established for the negotiation of teachers salaries.

Research and Organisation

We shall continue to encourage educational research and provide extra funds for this purpose.

Of the many different forms of secondary school organisation which now exist, none has established itself as exclusively right. The Socialist plan to impose the comprehensive principle, regardless of the wishes of parents, teachers and authorities, is therefore foolishly doctrinaire. Their leader may protest that grammar schools will be abolished ‘ over his dead body”, but abolition would be the inevitable and disastrous consequence of the policy to which they are committed. Conservative policy, by contrast, is to encourage provision, in good schools of every description, of opportunities for all children to go forward to the limit of their capacity.

The Youth Service

Beyond the gates of school, college and factory, young people need ample facilities for social activity and outlets for adventure and service.

As we promised in 1959, the Youth Service has been rejuvenated through the building of new clubs and the training of capable leaders. We shall press forward with this work, encourage more courses of the ‘ Outward Bound” type, and foster schemes whereby young people can assist the elderly.

RE-SHAPING SOCIAL SECURITY

Under Conservatism the value of social security benefits has outpaced both prices and average earnings; under Socialism they were eaten away by inflation. We pledge ourselves to ensure that those receiving such benefits continue to share in the higher standards produced by an expanding economy.

Help will be concentrated first and foremost on those whose needs are greatest. Special insurance provision has already been directed to widows with children. When next we make a general increase in benefits, we shall give preferential treatment to the older pensioners.

Those who work after retirement age, and widows at work, have benefited from a steady relaxation of the earnings rule “. In the next Parliament we shall again progressively raise the amounts they can earn without deduction of pension.

Our graduated pension scheme, started in 1961, embodied the principle that retirement pensions should be more closely related to individual earnings. As we have explained, we are now proposing to extend this principle to benefits for the early months of unemployment and sickness, and we shall give similar help to widows during the early months of widowhood.

General Review

All these proposals will make important improvements in the existing social security system. This system was framed 20 years ago, and in the light of pre-war experience. Since then there have been dramatic changes in economic conditions and social needs. We therefore propose to institute a full review of social security arrangements, so that their subsequent development may be suited to modern circumstances.

The review will not be confined to the national insurance scheme, but will include industrial injuries insurance, the varying provisions for widows, and the method of supplementing benefits.

Pension Rights

In organising social security the State ought not to stifle personal and family responsibility or the growth of sound occupational schemes. Socialist plans would do precisely that. We Conservatives welcome the valuable additional security which occupational schemes provide, and will help to preserve such pension rights for people changing jobs.

We shall continue to make special provision for war widows and those disabled in the service of their country. The level of pensions for retired members of the armed forces and other Government servants will be adjusted as necessary. In the next Pensions Increase Act we shall reduce the age at which such pension increases are payable from 60 to 55.

THE HOUSING PROGRAMME

One family in every four is living in a new home built under the Conservatives. More than half of the million houses classified as unfit when our slum clearance drive began have been replaced. One third of the 2,500,000 older houses capable of improvement have been given a new lease of life with the aid of Government grant.

This is a vast achievement; but there is much more to do. We are again speeding up progress on every front. Here are the main points of our programme:

1. Expansion in House-building

Since 1951 homes have been built at an average rate of 300,000 a year. We shall build about 370,000 this year. Next year we shall reach our new target of 400,000. This will be sustained, and will enable us to overtake remaining shortages, while keeping pace with the needs of a more prosperous, younger marrying, longer living and fast increasing population.

2. Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal

In the towns and cities where most remaining slums are concentrated, clearance rates are being doubled. We aim to clear by 1973 virtually all the known slums. As each authority completes this task, we shall go on to redevelop out-dated residential areas.

3. Modernising Older Houses

Already 130,000 sound older houses are being modernised each year. The 1964 Housing Act provides for systematic improvement in older areas, with powers of compulsion where landlords are not persuaded to co-operate by the better grant arrangements. In this way we shall step up modernisation to 200,000 a year.

4. Increasing Home Ownership

Owner-occupation has spread to 44 per cent. of families. Conservatives will encourage its continued increase. Land registration leads to reduction of legal fees involved in house purchase: we shall hasten this process, aiming to complete it first in built-up areas and then for the whole country.

5. Co-ownership and Cost Renting

Co-ownership schemes provide most of the advantages of owner-occupation for a much smaller deposit and lower out-goings. We have set up a Housing Corporation which will release £300m. to housing societies, building for co-ownership and for renting without subsidy and without profit.

6. Local Authority Housing

We intend to revise the system of housing subsidies. Provided authorities charge proper rents, with rebates for those who cannot afford them, they will be able to plan ahead confidently and maintain necessary programmes especially for slum clearance, relief of overcrowding new and expanded towns, and the needs of the elderly – without burdening the rates.

7. Improved Building Methods

Our long-term plans give the construction industries confidence to expand and modernise. Through the voluntary consortia of local authorities and our National Building Agency they are enabled to introduce up-to-date methods and techniques which save site labour and increase productivity. We shall reform the laws governing building standards and safeguard the quality of houses for owner-occupation.

8. Supply of Land

Our regional studies, showing land needs for twenty years ahead, will enable planning authorities to release ample land in the right places and without damage to the green belts. This substantial increase in the supply of land will do more to stabilise land prices than anything else.

Where major developments are in prospect-such as the many new towns and town expansions which are being started or proposed land will be acquired well in advance and made available to private and public enterprise as necessary.

The Finance Act 1962 brought short-term land transactions within the sphere of ordinary taxation. In considering any further measure to tax land transactions, the test must be that it should not adversely affect the price or the supply of land.

We reject the Labour Party’s” Land Commission” as an unworkable and bureaucratic device, which would dry up the voluntary supply of land and slow down all our housing and building programmes.

9. Rent Control

In the next Parliament we shall take no further steps to remove rent control. Additional safeguards for tenants will be provided if shown to be necessary by the inquiry into rented housing in London.

A HEALTHY NATION

The past thirteen years have seen improvements in the nation’s health greater than in any comparable period. These advances we owe to medical science and the skill of the healing professions. They could only have been achieved against a background of rising living standards and continuously expanding health services such as Conservative Government is providing.

The Conservative Hospital Plan will ensure that every man, woman and child in the country has access to the best treatment. We aim to build or rebuild some 300 hospitals of which over 80 are already in progress-and carry through 400 major schemes of improvement. Priority will be given to additional maternity beds, so that every mother who needs to will be able to have her baby in hospital. There will be no question of closing any existing hospital unless or until there is satisfactory alternative provision.

Those not needing hospital care will be properly looked after by community services. Local authorities are expanding these under our health and welfare plan. Support for old people living at home will come from increasing numbers of health visitors, home nurses, home helps and social workers for those who can no longer manage on their own, there w ill be modern, specially designed accommodation. Provision for the physically and mentally handicapped is being brought up to date and will be greatly increased. New maternity and child welfare clinics are being built throughout the country.

In these plans for the nation’s health, the scope for voluntary service will be emphasised, and we shall concentrate on the human approach which can make all the difference when a person is sick, handicapped or lonely.

Cure and Prevention

A working party is now considering how best we can help the crucial work of the family doctor. Terms and conditions of service, methods of payment, the number of patients on doctors lists, and their access to hospitals and other facilities will be reviewed, so as to raise still further the standards of good doctoring.

We shall improve and bring up to date the law controlling the safety and quality of drugs.

We shall also continue our campaigns against the enemies of good health, by eliminating slum environments, reducing air pollution, and cleaning the rivers and beaches.

THE QUALITY OF LIFE

There is an enormous growth in the variety and richness of leisure-time activity. Appreciation of the arts, hobbies and handicrafts of every kind, physical sports, home and foreign travel-these and other pursuits are increasing year by year. They are a cheerful measure of rising prosperity. For the “affluence” at which Socialists sneer is enabling people, not only to satisfy material wants, but to develop their interests and their feel for the quality of life.

The Government has trebled since 1951 the amount of money provided for the arts. Recently we have helped to bring the National Theatre into being, multiplied several times over the grants to museums and galleries for purchasing works of art, and done much to preserve and open to the public old and lovely houses. We shall continue to expand this support and to increase the resources of the Arts Council We shall also seek to promote higher standards of architecture and civic planning, and commission works by contemporary artists for public buildings.

Broadcasting and Television

Broadcasting in Britain has always been regarded as a medium for providing information, education and entertainment. For all these elements to find effective expression, viewers and listeners must be given the widest possible choice of programmes. This is why we introduced I.T.V., authorised BBC-2, and have licensed experiments in Pay-as-you-view television by wire.

We wish to extend the range of choice still further. That will be our object when considering proposals for the fourth television channel and for the establishment of a system of local sound radio.

Sport

Capital outlay for sport and physical recreation has increased fourfold in four years. But there remains a need in and around the towns and cities for many more sports grounds, playing fields, running tracks, swimming baths and gymnasia. Local authorities have been advised on how to combine with their neighbours for the larger projects, and a substantial programme will be authorised.

Countryside Commission

In the countryside we must satisfy the need for recreational facilities without harm to rural and farming interests.

We propose to set up a countryside commission with sufficient resources to secure the positive care of countryside and coast, including the national parks. It will be charged with promoting the systematic clearance in these localities of derelict land and other eyesores. Whilst strictly safeguarding secluded areas, the commission will advise planning authorities on the designation of recreation areas” where boating, climbing, gliding and similar activities will be welcome.

FREEDOM AND ORDER

The consistent aim of Conservative policy is to uphold the British way of life, centred upon the dignity and liberty of the individual.

To this end we swept away Socialist restrictions and restored freedom of enterprise and choice. We safeguarded individual rights at tribunals and inquiries along the lines suggested by the Franks Report. We have made reforms in the composition of the House of Lords, the procedure of the House of Commons, and the structure of local government. We have taken measures to protect the public against lawlessness and introduced compensation for the victims of violent crime.

We intend to continue this work of modernising our institutions and strengthening the rule of law.

We shall propose to the newly elected House of Commons the immediate establishment of a select committee to consider further reforms in parliamentary procedure. It will be asked as matters of priority to review the methods for scrutinising public expenditure and to consider ways of speeding up the passage of many technical and relatively uncontroversial law reform Bills which we intend to bring forward. It will also have the opportunity to consider whether adequate means are available to members of Parliament to secure the redress of genuine complaints of maladministration.

A Conservative Government will call an all-party conference presided over by the Speaker to review electoral law. Among the changes it should consider is an extension of postal voting, since two-thirds of the nation now take holidays away from home.

In completing the reorganisation of local government, we shall aim to produce a system giving full scope to local knowledge, and capable of discharging within our regional plans the increasing responsibilities inseparable from rising population, living standards and car ownership.

We have appointed a committee to advise us on the best methods to stimulate and finance social studies both basic and applied, and we shall take action as soon as it reports.

Upholding Law

We shall continue to build up the strength of the police forces, and see that they are equipped with every modern scientific aid. A royal commission has been set up to report on sentencing policies and the most effective methods for the treatment of offenders. We have asked it to give urgent priority to the growing problem of crime among the young. Meanwhile, we have increased the penalties for malicious damage and the compensation to those who suffer from this form of hooliganism.

The system of after-care will be developed on comprehensive lines, to save offenders from returning to crime.

Much juvenile delinquency originates in broken or unhappy homes. We shall continue to support the work of marriage guidance. Local authorities will be encouraged, in co-operation with voluntary bodies, to develop their services of child care for young people deprived of normal home life and affection.

We shall extend legal aid to all care and protection cases in juvenile courts and, as resources permit, to tribunal cases beginning with the Lands Tribunal.

THE NATION’S CHOICE

We are issuing, simultaneously with this manifesto, special statements recording our achievements and plans in Scotland and in Wales. These demonstrate our regard for the distinctive rights and problems of each nation. They also show how our programmes are designed to secure the even spread of prosperity throughout Great Britain.

A Conservative and Unionist Government will continue to support the Government of Northern Ireland in developing and diversifying the economy, and so providing new employment. It is a cardinal principle of our policy that Northern Ireland’s partnership with Great Britain in the United Kingdom shall remain unchanged so long as that is the wish of the Parliament at Stormont.

We have now shown the extent to which, by building upon past progress, fresh advances can be made with a Conservative Government in the next five years.

But we warn the nation that both the gains of the past and the hopes of the future would be imperilled by Socialism.

On examination, what the Labour Parry have to offer is not a “New Britain”, but a camouflaged return to the dreary doctrines which had already proved a failure when they were last dismissed from office.

What we are offering is an extension of that prosperity – prosperity with a purpose – which our policies have been proved to achieve.

The manifesto issued by the Conservative Party for the 1966 General Election.

Action Not Words:
The New Conservative Programme

FOREWORD

I present to the people of Britain a manifesto which is also a blueprint It is a blueprint not for a year but for a full Parliament I am deter mined to promise nothing that we cannot achieve. I know that we shall inherit from the Labour Government a weak economic position, and I intend to give first priority to the management of our economy, to the strengthening of Britain’s competitive position in world markets and to the repayment of the heavy burden of debt which they have incurred.

Equally I am determined to break away from the growing constraint of Socialism and the dreariness which stems from it: from the pattern of inflation and stagnant production which has been created.

I want to see our social services recognise the overriding claims of those in most need. I want to see choice become once more part of the pattern of life of the individual. I want to see our country with confidence in itself and in the future taking its place in the European Economic Community.

These are the things we must achieve. This manifesto points the way. I ask now for your confidence so that we can put it into effect I call not for words – but for action.

EDWARD HEATH

OUR NEW CONSERVATIVE PROGRAMME

This is what we are going to do:

• Get the economy straight, check rising prices, and restore expansion.
• Reform the trade unions.
• Remodel the Welfare State.
• Get the nation properly housed.
• Restore respect for Britain and lead her into Europe.

THE LABOUR RECORD

In October 1964 the Labour Government came to power promising action. Since then we have had many more promises. And many words. But the one thing we have not had is action. For eighteen months we have been waiting while the Labour leaders talk. But their words have had little relation to the facts.

The Labour Government has had its opportunity and it has failed. It’s easy enough to say ‘Let’s be fair to Labour. Give them another chance.’ But it would be taking an immense chance with everybody’s future to do so. We cannot afford to sit and wait for the other failures and blunders that will be coming our way if Labour is left in charge.

Just look at their record. The Labour leaders have failed to tackle the fundamental economic and social problems at home. Abroad Britain’s reputation has declined under their clumsy and uncertain touch. In the High Street prices are rising. Up go rates and taxes, down go standards of service on the buses and trains and in other public industries. The road programme is held up. The universities and technical colleges have had to cut back their expansion plans. The housing target has been missed. Mortgage rates are higher than ever. Complicated tax penalties are sapping individual enterprise. Production in industry is stagnating.

It is a depressing catalogue. It is hard to see how any one of us, whatever our job or whatever our attitude to politics, can be satisfied with the situation into which we have now drifted. Nor can anyone be content to let this sort of thing go on. This is not the kind of Britain we want.

All those who really believe in this country must know in their hearts that we can do far, far better, given energy and imagination. And not only for ourselves, but for our families, our communities and for the millions overseas who rely on a strong and free Britain.

THE CONSERVATIVE WAY AHEAD

The alternative to Labour drift is less talk and gimmickry, and more positive action. The alternative is a government team which means what it says and knows what it intends to do: a government that doesn’t run away; an honest government.

Our first aim is this: to run this country’s affairs efficiently and realistically so that we achieve steadier prices in the shops, high wages and a really decent standard of social security.

With sensible and determined action and our new Conservative policies we can reach these goals. But we have to be quite clear what this means. It means that we must give every man and woman a chance to play a decisive and worthwhile part in restoring Britain’s health and strength and confidence. It means that our best brains must be encouraged and rewarded so that they can get on and succeed. It means that there must be a war on inefficiency and waste in the public industries – as well as in Whitehall and in the town hall. It means that pride, self-confidence and efficiency must replace the suspicion and the ‘who cares?’ attitude which weaken industry and hold us all back.

Now to get to these goals here are the action programmes which we will be starting on as soon as we form a government.

• First the next Conservative Government will not hesitate to take all the measures necessary to deal with the immediate economic situation. Our new economic programme will make a prices and incomes policy really effective.
• Second, we will use tax incentives to encourage individual men and women to earn and save more for themselves and their families.
• Third, our new policies for competition will inject fresh vitality into British industry, keeping prices down and quality up, and giving the housewife the service she deserves.
• Fourth, we will be launching new industrial policies, involving major reforms of both management and unions. At last the barriers in the way of higher productivity and higher earnings will be brought down.
• Fifth, we will be making big changes in the organisation of our government and public services.
• Sixth, we will start new programmes for speeding up the spread of prosperity to the English regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• Seventh, the strategy of the new Conservative Government will be to throw everything this country has in skill, resources and brainpower behind the things at which Britain is best. We intend to see British quality again become the pace-setter in world markets and British services again become the envy of the world. And we intend to bring in the men who can do the job.

We intend to reform both British management and British trade unions.

Everyone is fed up with pointless strikes and outdated management. We reject the argument that there is a clash between the interests of management and workpeople. Higher wages, good profits and competitive products are in the interests of both. Efficient production and stable prices are what the customer wants.

Here are the action programmes we shall be introducing to bring this about.

• First, we will be transforming industrial relations by introducing a new Act covering the trade unions and employers’ associations.
• Second, we will be turning the heat on restrictive practices by both management and labour so that men and women can do a decent job unhampered by the fears and restrictions which belong to another age.
• Third, we want to see better job prospects with greater security of incomes and pensions in the new high-wage low-cost economy.

We intend to revitalise our Welfare State so that those most in need get the most help and so that our money is used sensibly and fairly. We will be working to a fresh pattern of social priorities to meet new needs and help build our community on more responsible lines.

We want to see more generous help for those who have special needs not yet met by the Welfare State. We want to see family life strengthened by our Conservative social policies. We intend that there should be full equality of opportunity but not that we should all be equally held back to the pace of the slowest. Our policies are designed to bring higher quality and wider choice into our lives. We reject the kind of outdated thinking which leads to cuts in university and college expansion in order to provide free drugs for all.

Here are the action programmes which make up the new Conservative social policy and which will fulfil our aims.

• First, an entirely new social security strategy designed to concentrate better care and the biggest benefits on those most in need.
• Second, wider ownership – not only of houses but of pension rights and other forms of capital as well.
• Third, full educational opportunity, putting the needs of the individual child before Party doctrine. The first thing is to get more colleges and schools built, particularly primary schools, and more teachers trained.
• Fourth, an all out attack on the rising wave of crime which today besmirches our society.
• Fifth, fair treatment for immigrants combined with stricter control of entry.
• Sixth, more regional administration with strong and modernised local government.
• Seventh, better conditions for the car driver, the commuter and the travelling public generally.
• Finally, a countryside preserved where it is beautiful and transformed where it is ugly and derelict.

We intend to see that this entire nation is decently housed.

Our aim is more choice in housing. We are determined to see house prices in reach of those eager to buy homes of their own. We are determined to see that the needs of people for rented accommodation are more effectively met.

Here are the action programmes we intend to launch.

• First we will raise the housing target to an annual rate of 500,000 homes by the end of 1968. We reached our target before, and we will hit it again. We will make use of every new method that works to get the houses up and keep the prices down. And there will be major reforms in planning procedure to increase the supply of land for building.
• Second, we will encourage more people to buy their own homes – by aid with deposits or help with interest payments or by assisting with the purchase of older houses.
• Third, the next Conservative Government will speed up council house building for slum areas. And we will insist on sensible local authority rent policies.

We are determined to give Britain a respected place in the world again and lead her into the European Community.

Britain must be part of a wider grouping if she is to exert her full influence in the world. British industry must have far bigger markets if it is to develop on the scale required in so many cases by modern technology.

This can best be achieved by Britain becoming a member of an enlarged European Economic Community to which she herself has so much to contribute.

A strong Britain can provide a powerful trading partner, and a growing source of skill, knowledge and capital, for the other members of the Commonwealth. This way also lies the best chance of Britain helping the developing countries.

That is why we shall seize the first favourable opportunity of becoming a member of the Community.

These are our aims. The detailed proposals which follow show how we will achieve them.

Together they form a powerful new strategy-based on sound Conservative principles – to replace words with action, and promises with achievements.

BLUEPRINT FOR A PARLIAMENT

TO ENSURE PROSPERITY WITH STEADIER PRICES

Get taxes down again so as to encourage hard work and enterprise.

Encourage wider ownership. Drastically revise Labour’s ill-prepared tax changes which penalise saving and go-ahead companies.

Get better management by improving management education at all levels.

Reform company law-doing the whole job instead of Labour’s inadequate proposals.

Mount a new attack on restrictive business practices which hurt the public interest. Close the legal loop-holes Labour have left open.

Speed up and give more punch to the Monopolies Commission. And cut tariffs wherever it can be shown that competition from abroad is needed to deal with monopolies.

Set up a Small Business Development Bureau to help small firms start and grow.

Step up opportunities to train and retrain for better, more highly paid jobs. Build up the Youth Employment Service into a Careers Advisory Service for adults as well as young people.

Help the housewife with new legislation on misleading ‘guarantees’ and more vigorous use of safety standards for food and household goods.

Abolish the out-dated restrictions on the hours during which shops can open on week days.

Start a new drive to put the customer first in the nationalised industries and to increase efficiency in these and other public services.

Stimulate the new technological industries at which Britain excels. Provide the aerospace industry with a stable long-term programme based on European co-operation.

Stop the war in Whitehall between rival economic Ministers with conflicting policies. Put one man in charge with one firm policy which hangs together.

Start a war on waste in Government. Establish a Cost Effectiveness Department to introduce new management techniques into all Government Departments. Use sophisticated computer techniques to study the feasibility of Government projects.

Make greater use of the knowledge available in the universities and industry in the formation of Government policy. In particular, enlist scientists, the universities and industrial consultants to help us prevent waste of taxpayers’ money.

TO IMPROVE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Pass a new Industrial Relations Act and establish a new Code of Good Industrial Relations Practice.

Ensure that agreements between unions and employers are kept by making them legally enforceable.

Establish a Registrar of trade unions and employers’ associations. See that their rules are fair and meet the interests of the public.

Set up a new Industrial Court to deal with industrial disputes and claims for damages against unjust dismissal.

Introduce measures to deal with restrictive labour practices.

Repeal the Trade Disputes Act 1965 so as to help prevent intimidation.

TO PROVIDE BETTER TRANSPORT

Speed up the building of motorways with the aid of increased productivity in the road building industry.

Resume the task of increasing railway efficiency and of reducing the railway deficit.

Give independent airlines new opportunities to develop inter-city services.

Improve the traffic flow of big cities and the efficiency of public transport by traffic management and by building off-street parking.

Get on with the modernisation of our ports. End the casual employment system. Reduce the number of different employers. Improve working relations – for example, see that better welfare facilities are provided.

TO HELP AGRICULTURE

Give Britain’s farmers scope to supply a bigger share of the home market for food.

Move over gradually from Exchequer deficiency payments to a system of import control.

Maintain the support given by the Agriculture Acts throughout the transition stage, and ensure continued support in any legislation required to implement our new proposals.

Keep production grants and special help (e.g. small farms, farm improvements and hill farms).

Modernise the main horticultural markets, give continued support to co-operation and encourage better marketing techniques.

TO GET INTO EUROPE

Work energetically for entry into the European Common Market at the first favourable opportunity.

Prepare for entry by relating the development of our own policies to those of the Common Market, wherever appropriate.

Encourage co-operation with other European countries in joint projects which need not await our membership of the Common Market: particularly where large-scale scientific and technological resources are called for.

TO PROVIDE MOST CARE FOR THOSE IN NEED

See that everyone has a good pension with their job, on top of the State basic pension.

Ensure that everyone can either transfer or preserve their pension when they change jobs.

Give more generous help to children in families where the income is below minimum need, to the very old, to the chronic sick, to the severely disabled and to others most in need.

Improve rehabilitation and retraining for the disabled.

Help people who have put by some savings, by raising the amount which can be disregarded before a supplementary pension is granted.

Continue to ease the earnings rule.

Provide a pension for those too old to be covered by National Insurance.

Combine the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the National Assistance Board into a single Department with local officers who would have a positive duty to seek out those needing help whether in cash or in care. The new Department would have a research organisation to pin-point changing needs.

Establish inspectors of welfare to improve co-ordination between local authority, hospital and voluntary services.

Encourage voluntary service.

End the present rigid age barrier of 50 which prevents some widows who have been out of employment for many years from getting any pension at all.

Give special help to areas where there is the most need – for example, bad housing and oversized school classes.

Restore – subject to wide exemptions (such as the elderly, chronic sick, disabled, expectant and nursing mothers) – prescription charges. Use the savings for higher social priorities including the hospital and medical service.

Improve the health service by giving family doctors closer contact with hospitals and with local health and welfare services. Improve conditions for doctors.

Review all public service and Armed Forces pensions every two years to ensure that they maintain their purchasing power. Reduce to 55 the age at which increased pensions become payable. Bring the pensions of those who retired before 1956 up to the same level as if they had retired then with appropriate increases since. Give special treatment to war pensioners and their widows.

TO PROVIDE BETTER EDUCATION

Get more teachers especially for the primary schools by expanding the Colleges of Education, enabling part-time teachers to qualify for pension, and giving more encouragement to married women who want to return to teaching.

See that more teaching aids are made available.

Give back to local authorities the freedom to make small improvements, for example, an extra classroom or better sanitation.

Encourage local education authorities to provide as full a range of courses as possible in all their secondary schools.

Judge proposals for reorganisation on their educational merits. Strongly oppose hasty and makeshift plans, especially in the big cities, for turning good grammar and secondary modern schools into comprehensive schools.

Give improvements to primary school accommodation priority over projects for building new comprehensive schools where adequate secondary accommodation already exists.

Give parents as much choice as possible by having diversity in the pattern of education. Give independent schools of high standing the opportunity to become direct grant schools, thus narrowing the gap between State schools and fee paying schools.

Establish an Educational Television Centre to encourage the best use of television – broadcast and closed circuit – in schools, colleges and universities.

Restore the university and further education buildings programmes cut by the Labour Government.

TO HOUSE THE NATION

Speed up house building. Reach our target of a rate of 500,000 new homes a year by the end of 1968. Use modern building methods and speed up planning procedures.

Help home buyers by these three methods, as appropriate:

• Helping with their deposits.
• Enabling people below the standard rate of tax who are buying their home to deduct from the interest payments on their mortgages an amount similar to the tax relief obtained by those who pay tax. People eligible for the present tax allowance will have the option of continuing it.
• Introducing again the scheme for Exchequer help for the buying of older houses through the Building Societies.
• Give home buyers a guarantee of good workmanship.
• Accelerate housing for the elderly.
• See that council house subsidies are concentrated on those who really need them.
• Increase council house building for slum clearance.
• Expand the work of Housing Associations, so as to provide more good homes, at reasonable prices.
• Introduce depreciation allowances to help provide more homes to rent.
• Maintain rent control where there is a shortage of houses.
• Legislate to allow ground leaseholders to buy or rent their houses on fair terms except where the property is to be redeveloped.
• Take £100 million off the rates – equivalent to one-tenth of the rate bill.

TO BEAT THE CRIME WAVE

Place responsibility for law and order and for the war against crime on the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Set up a central staff within the Home Office responsible for police strategy, intelligence and equipment.

Accelerate the amalgamation of local police forces and establish a clear chain of command. Within a national force of this kind, local loyalties can and will be preserved.

Ensure that the police have the organisation, manpower and equipment to do the job.

Make offenders pay restitution for the injuries and damage they have done. Replace many short term sentences by substantial fines.

Preserve the Juvenile Courts and expand the methods available for dealing with the problems of young people.

Train those in prison to become useful members of the community.

TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM OF IMMIGRATION

Ensure that all immigrants living in Britain are treated in all respects as equal citizens and without discrimination.

Introduce a conditional entry system which will control the initial time during which a new immigrant may stay, until permission is granted either permanently or for a further limited period.

Strengthen the arrangements for health checks for immigrants.

Require all immigrants to register the names of any dependants who might at any time wish to join them, so that their numbers will be known. In the case of new immigrants the number of dependants will be an important factor in deciding whether entry will be permitted.

Help immigrants already here to rejoin their families in their countries of origin, or to return with their families to these countries, if they so wish.

Combine stricter control of entry with special help where necessary to those areas where immigrants are concentrated.

TO BUILD A BETTER COUNTRY AND WIDEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR RECREATION

Plan the coast and countryside in such a way as to increase their natural beauty, increase the holiday attractions of Britain, and encourage provision for the growing numbers who leave the towns to sail, ski, climb, picnic or go caravaning.

Create a new Coast and Countryside Commission with the powers to get on with the job, using the resources of both public authorities and private enterprise.

Open more inland water for recreation, provide more access for visitors to the National Forests, and secure a national network of camping and caravan sites.

Encourage the development of regional recreation areas, largely financed by private investment, on the model of the Lea Valley Scheme.

End the existing confusion and duplication of effort between at least five Ministries in Whitehall, by setting up within the Ministry of Housing and Local Government a Recreation Department.

Provide more choice and competition in broadcasting.

Encourage the arts, particularly in the provinces. Promote high standards of architecture and civic planning.

TO DEAL WITH THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF EACH AREA

Develop fully the resources of each region and maintain its character in consultation with local organisations. Accelerate action on regional studies.

Develop the growth zone idea which Labour has abandoned. Strengthen the public services in these areas by greater investment in communications, homes, schools and hospitals. Provide financial inducements for new industry.

Improve amenities: provide powers to clear away the industrial dereliction of yesterday.

TO BRING NEW PROSPERITY TO SCOTLAND

Expand Government Training Centres and technical education programmes in order to provide the new skills which our new industries need.

Make a greater allocation of funds for education in the Highlands, the Borders and other country areas.

Concentrate development in those areas where it is most needed and will do the most good.

Restore the cuts which the Labour Government has made in Scottish road-building and pursue policies which will stop transport costs rising so fast.

Encourage competition on Scottish air routes and ensure that the Highlands have services timed to suit the people who live and work there.

Make a top priority the clearance of the remaining slums in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and other cities by every type of building – private building, council building and housing associations.

Introduce sensible rent schemes for local authority housing.

Make the best use of our land resources outside the central belt by supporting the hill farmers, encouraging the expansion of forestry and planning special tourist areas.

Make the Scottish Tourist Board a more professional body and use it to stimulate the growth of the industry.

Modernise local government and its finance.

TO BRING NEW PROSPERITY TO WALES

Tackle the problem of depopulation in mid-Wales by constructing first class road communications from Shrewsbury to Cardigan Bay, by attracting new industries, and by revitalising existing towns and developing mid-Wales as an area of high amenity and a tourist attraction.

Develop the coastal road in North Wales from Queensferry to Caernarvon.

Encourage new industrial development in North and South Wales and the development of the South Wales ports under a group system.

Give special attention to the needs of the hill farming community.

Maintain a Secretary for Wales in the Cabinet.

Overhaul the structure and organisation of Local Government in Wales.

Legislate to allow ground leaseholders to buy or rent their houses on fair terms except where the property is to be redeveloped.

Expand higher education in Wales and grant independent status to each university college. The university college of Cardiff, the Welsh college of Advanced Technology and the National School of Medicine will form the Civic University of Cardiff.

Encourage and foster the culture and arts which are the characteristic of the Welsh people.

TO BRING NEW PROSPERITY TO NORTHERN IRELAND

Co-operate with the Northern Ireland Government in:

• Seeing that Northern Ireland, as an integral part of the U.K., shares fully in the economic growth of the rest of the country; in particular, that the counties west of the Bann share in growing prosperity.
• Improving basic services, such as the new road programmes now being planned.
• Offering inducements to new industry to raise employment.
• Promoting the interests of Ulster farmers, bearing particularly in mind the size of holdings and their distance from the rest of the British market.

TO STRENGTHEN THE COMMONWEALTH

Break the deadlock in Rhodesia by initiating talks with Mr. Smith and his colleagues for the purpose of obtaining a constitutional settlement, without any prior conditions on either side.

Strengthen and expand existing Commonwealth links by making full use of the Commonwealth Foundation, by encouraging the professional, legal, medical and educational Commonwealth Conferences and by acting on their recommendations where appropriate.

Encourage voluntary service overseas.

Help Commonwealth development by technical and other assistance, by joint or bi-lateral projects and by ensuring that all aid given is used to its maximum effect.

Work for the expansion of world and Commonwealth trade through the U.N. Trade and Development Board and the Kennedy Round tariff negotiations.

TO HELP PRESERVE WORLD PEACE

Make our contribution to NATO. Fulfil our treaty obligations in the Middle and Far East.

Maintain a combination of nuclear and conventional arms related to our financial resources to enable us to defend ourselves and to honour these commitments. In particular, go on with the building of the new aircraft carrier.

Maintain properly equipped Regular forces together with reserve forces – including the Territorial Army – suitable reorganised for their supporting roles.

Seek, with our allies, every means and opportunity of bringing an end to hostilities in the Far East, thus reducing the pressure on our resources in that area.

Seek to make the United Nations a more effective instrument for keeping peace.

Renew Conservative support for the admission of Communist China to the United Nations.

Give a new impetus to disarmament by pressing for an extension of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to underground tests and an agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The 1970 Conservative Party manifesto.

A Better Tomorrow

FOREWORD

This Manifesto sets out the policies of the Conservative Party for a better Britain. It provides a programme for a Parliament, how fast we can go will depend on how difficult a situation we find when we take office.

But good government is not just a matter of the right policies. It also depends on the way the government is run. This is something which I have thought about deeply. Indeed, it has been one of my main interests since I entered the House of Commons in 1950.

During the last six years we have suffered not only from bad policies, but from a cheap and trivial style of government Decisions have been dictated simply by the desire to catch tomorrow’s headlines. The short-term gain has counted for everything; the long-term objective has gone out of the window. Every device has been used to gain immediate publicity, and government by gimmick has become the order of the day. Decisions lightly entered into have been as lightly abandoned.

It is not surprising that under this system several senior Labour Ministers have at different times left the Government in disgust at the way it is run. It is not surprising that when ever I have travelled abroad in recent years friends of Britain have told me of their sadness at the way in which our reputation has shrunk. It is not surprising that young people in this country looking at politics for the first time should be suspicious and cynical.

I am determined therefore that a Conservative Government shall introduce a new style of government: that we shall re-establish our sound and honest British traditions in this field.

I want to see a fresh approach to the taking of decisions. The Government should seek the best advice and listen carefully to it. It should not rush into decisions, it should use up-to-date techniques for assessing the situation, it should be deliberate and thorough. And in coming to its decisions it must always recognise that its responsibility is to the people, and all the people, of this country.

What is more, its decision should be aimed at the long term. The easy answer and the quick trick may pay immediate dividends in terms of publicity, but in the end it is the national interest which suffers. We have seen that too often in the recent past

Finally, once a decision is made, once a policy is established, the Prime Minister and his colleagues should have the courage to stick to it Nothing has done Britain more harm in the world than the endless backing and filling which we have seen in recent years. Whether it be our defence commitments, or our financial policies, or the reform of industrial relations, the story has been the same. At the first sign of difficulty the Labour Government has sounded the retreat, covering its withdrawal with a smokescreen of unlikely excuses. But courage and intellectual honesty are essential qualities in politics, and in the interest of our country it is high time that we saw them again.

So it will not be enough for a Conservative Government to make a fresh start with new policies. We must create a new way of running our national affairs. This means sweeping away the trivialities and the gimmicks which now dominate the political scene. It means dealing honestly and openly with the House of Commons, with the press and with the public.

The decisions which a Government has to take affect the livelihood and perhaps the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. No-one has any business to take part in public life unless he is prepared to take such decisions with the seriousness which they deserve.

This is my strongest personal conviction, and I shall not be content until it is the guiding principle of the government of this country.

EDWARD HEATH

A BETTER TOMORROW

This election is about Britain’s tomorrow. The choice of a Government for the next five years will go far to determine the future of our country right through the seventies and beyond.

The Failures of Today

The nation now knows what five years of Labour rule can mean. Hundreds of thousands of extra families suffering the hardship and insecurity of unemployment. Increasing problems of poverty and homelessness. Pensioners helpless as they watch the extra shillings eaten up by the fastest price rise for twenty years. Housewives struggling to make ends meet. £3,000 million a year of extra taxation equivalent to £3.10.0d a week for every family. A devalued £. A new load of foreign debt, some of it stretching ahead into the twenty-first century.

Britain has paid many times over in lost opportunity for the benefit of any improvement on our overseas trade account. The nation has lost £12,000 million in potential wealth as the result of Labour’s failure to maintain expansion. That’s about £750 for every family in the country.

Our economy has expanded more slowly than that of any other comparable country in the world. Almost everywhere in Western Europe and North America the standard of living grows faster than in Britain. International experts are predicting that if these trends are allowed to continue Britain will soon be the poorest major country in the West.

As a nation, we have been starved of achievement. We have become conditioned to failure.

To pay our way, normal in Conservative years, now seems like a miracle. High unemployment is no longer the exception but the rule. We have become resigned to the value of the £ in our pockets or purses falling by at least a shilling a year. For a year to pass without a crisis has become cause for congratulation.

Yet before these locust years of Labour, we had the Conservative years of rising prosperity. Years when Britain’s industry expanded faster. When the standard of living grew three times as fast. When prices rose more slowly. When unemployment was low. When tax rates were cut time after time. When pensions rose twice as fast as prices. When the social services at home advanced more rapidly, and Britain played a proper part in helping poorer countries overseas.

Conservatives are proud of yesterday’s achievements. Angered by today’s failures. Determined that tomorrow shall be better again.

We remember 1966, when the strengthening balance of payments which was Labour’s true inheritance was smothered by the disastrous irresponsibility of a Party whose one concern was electoral success. Before the election, surplus and smiles. Afterwards, savage tax increases, the wage freeze, and a headlong plunge into deficit, devaluation and debt. It need not and must not be allowed to happen again.

Labour Has Nothing to Offer

Labour’s policies for the future are their policies of the past. Nothing to curb the rise in prices. Nothing to cut the human waste of unemployment. Nothing to see that extra social help goes where the need is greatest.

More taxes. More blanket subsidies. More state ownership. More civil servants. More government interference.

No new encouragement to earn and save. No new incentive to invest and expand. No new policy to bring about better relations in industry. No new deal for our farmers.

Just the mixture as before.

They have little to boast of in their record. Even less to put forward for the future. So they talk, instead, of their ideals.

But lust what are those ideals?

What ideal is it that leads a government to policies that double the rate of unemployment?

What ideal is it that makes it impossible for so many young couples to afford a home of their own, sets out to prevent people buying the council house they live in, and brings about the biggest drop in house-building in a quarter of a century?

What ideal is it that makes the poor get poorer, and three times votes down pensions for the over-eighties?

What ideal is it that breaks our country’s word abroad, weakens our defences, leaves our friends in the lurch, and cuts down our overseas aid?

What ideal is it that has to be propped up by rigging electoral boundaries?

What ideal is it that leaves a litter of broken promises wherever it goes?

Labour must answer for itself. But whatever its ideals may be, they have nothing in common with the values which Conservatives proclaim.

The Conservative Way

We want to build a better Britain. A Britain we can all be proud of. A Britain in which future generations will be happy to live. A. Britain which other nations will admire.

We want a country which makes the fullest use of all its human and material resources to build a new prosperity. A country which uses that prosperity wisely and well, helping the elderly and those in need, providing new educational opportunity for our children, investing for the future as well as giving us a fuller life today. A country confident in itself, playing a full part in the world’s affairs, accepting and meeting its responsibilities to others.

We want a society in which material advance goes hand in hand with the deeper values which go to make up the quality of life. A society which cares for its cities, towns and villages, its rivers, its coast, its countryside.

We want people to achieve the security and independence of personal ownership greater freedom of opportunity, greater freedom of choice, greater freedom from government regulation and interference. A responsible democracy based on honest government and respect for the law.

Despite all the failures and frustrations of recent years, Britain is still the best country n the world in which to live. But at best we have been marking time, at worst slipping back. It could and should be so much better.

Programme for a Parliament

In this Manifesto we present our policies to end the retreat and begin instead a new advance.

Our policies are not, like Labour’s, a collection of short lived devices. They make up a strategy for the next five years – a programme for a Parliament.

Nor are they a set of promises made only to be broken. The last Conservative Government kept all its promises. So will the next.

We start with the economy because this remains the key. The true problem in social policy is not that we spend too much but that with Labour stagnation we can afford too little.

Britain now faces the worst inflation for twenty years. This is mainly the result of tax increases and devaluation. In implementing all our policies, the need to curb inflation will come first. For only then can our broader strategy succeed.

Our theme is to replace Labour’s restrictions with Conservative incentive. We utterly reject the philosophy of compulsory wage control. We want instead to get production up and encourage everyone to give of their best.

• We want an economy based on more jobs, higher wages that are well-earned, and lower costs.
• We will reduce and reform taxation, giving first priority to reducing income tax so that people will keep a fairer reward for their work.
• We will create the basis for these reductions by giving new incentive to saving and by cutting out unnecessary state spending.
• We will strengthen responsible trade unions and good management by establishing fair, up-to-date rules for industrial relations.
• We will greatly increase opportunities for men and women to train for new and better jobs.
• We will stop further nationalisation, and create a climate for free enterprise to expand.
• We will introduce effective regional development policies to bring prosperity to every part of our country.
• We will give agriculture a real opportunity to increase production.

These are policies to enable people and government to work together to create new national wealth. Only on the secure basis of this foundation can we help everyone to build a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Our education policy will give greater priority to the primary schools, where an inadequate start can so easily destroy the chance that every child must have to develop its talents to the full.

We will reverse the decline in building, make home ownership easier again, and concentrate Government subsidies where they are most needed.

We will give priority to those most in need – the over-80s without pensions, the elderly, the disabled, the chronic sick, the children in families below the poverty line.

Our policies will reduce the causes of racial tension, and we will ensure that there will be no further large scale permanent immigration.

We will protect Britain’s interests overseas, and play our part in promoting peace and progress in the world.

These policies will strengthen Britain so that we can negotiate with the European Community confident in the knowledge that we can stand on our own if the price is too high.

A New Opportunity

The aim of these policies is to create the new opportunity for a better tomorrow.

• A better tomorrow with living standards rising again at a reasonable rate so that every family can enjoy a fuller life.
• A better tomorrow for all: for the families that are homeless today, for the unemployed; for the children still in poverty, and for the old and the lonely.
• A better tomorrow with greater freedom: freedom to earn and to save, freedom from government interference, freedom of choice, freedom from fear of crime and violence.
• A better tomorrow in a better Britain: with the beauty of our countryside preserved and improved, with our towns and cities made more pleasant to live in. A better tomorrow with a deeper appreciation of the quality and goodness of life.

Our nation has so much to be proud of and so much to offer. All we need now is a new opportunity that will allow the people of Britain to create for themselves a better tomorrow.

OUR PROGRAMME

These are our plans for making tomorrow better than today.

Lower Taxes

We will reduce taxation. We will simplify the tax system.

We will concentrate on making progressive and substantial reductions in income tax and surtax.

These reductions will be possible because we will cut out unnecessary Government spending and because we will encourage savings. And as our national income rises we will get a larger revenue with lower tax rates.

We will abolish the Selective Employment Tax, as part of a wider reform of indirect taxation possibly involving the replacement of purchase tax by a value-added tax.

The value-added tax, already widely adopted in Western Europe and Scandinavia, is in effect a general sales tax, operated in a way which allows for desirable exemptions – for example, exports. It could help to make our system of taxes on spending more broadly based, less discriminatory, and fairer in its impact on different types of industry and service.

It would not apply to food, except for those few items already subject to purchase tax. It would not apply to normal farming activities, nor to very small businesses; and special arrangements would be made for housing. No Opposition could commit itself finally in advance of an election to a major new tax of this kind which would need detailed consultation with the civil service.

Labour’s betterment levy has increased bureaucracy and put up the price of land and houses. We will do away with it and collect any tax due on a sale of land through the capital gains tax, with exemption for owner-occupiers.

We will end the tax nonsense which makes some married couples pay more tax on their joint earnings than they would if they were not married. We will repeal the Labour changes which have imposed new penalties on children’s income and disallowed the interest on many loans as a deduction from income for tax purposes.

We will encourage the flow of private funds to charities including voluntary social service, sport and the arts.

Labour has put tax rates up by over £3,000 million. We are determined to reverse this process. High taxation discourages effort and saving, deadens the spirit of enterprise and causes many of our best brains to leave the country.

In the thirteen years of Conservative prosperity we cut tax rates by £2,000 million – as well as doubling expenditure on the social services. We have done it before: we can do it again.

More Savings

When savings go up, taxes can come down. If savings had increased as fast during the last six years under Labour as they did in the previous six years with the Conservatives, taxation could now be £2,000 million lower – the equivalent of the whole of the selective employment tax and more than two shillings off income tax.

We will encourage all forms of saving, and saving at every level of earnings. Every family should be able to accumulate savings to give security and independence, to provide for their old age and their children’s future.

Our tax policies will stimulate savings. We will introduce a more imaginative contractual savings scheme designed particularly to attract new savings. Our plans for more home ownership and an extension of private and occupational pension schemes must mean higher personal savings. We have already done much and will do more to develop a ‘property-owning democracy’: now we must also progress towards the capital-owning democracy of the future, for individuals and families who save and accumulate wealth serve the nation as truly as they serve themselves.

Controlling Government Spending

Under Labour, there has been too much government interference in the day-to-day workings of industry and local government. There has been too much government: there will be less.

We will reduce the number of Ministers. We will reduce the number of civil servants: under Labour their numbers have grown by over 60,000. The Land Commission will be abolished. The functions and responsibilities of all departments and government agencies will be systematically rationalised. There will be cost-reduction plans for every single Ministry in Whitehall, and the widespread application throughout government of the most modern management, budgeting and cost-effectiveness techniques. Some present government activities could be better organised using competent managers recruited from industry and commerce. Plans to achieve this new style of government are well advanced. It will be more efficient and less costly.

Detailed policies set out in this document will also lead to reductions in the weight of government spending.

Steadier Prices

The cost of living has rocketed during the last six years. Prices are now rising more than twice as fast as they did during the Conservative years. And prices have been zooming upwards at the very same time as the Government have been taking an ever-increasing slice of people’s earnings in taxation. Soaring prices and increasing taxes are an evil and disastrous combination.

Inflation is not only damaging to the economy; it is a major cause of social injustice, always hitting hardest at the weakest and poorest members of the community.

The main causes of rising prices are Labour’s damaging policies of high taxation and devaluation. Labour’s compulsory wage control was a failure and we will not repeat it.

The Labour Government’s own figures show that, last year, taxation and price increases more than cancelled any increase in incomes. So wages started chasing prices up in a desperate and understandable attempt to improve living standards.

Other countries achieve a low-cost high-wage economy. So can we. Our policies of strengthening competition will help to keep down prices in the shops. Our policies for cutting taxes, for better industrial relations, for greater retraining, for improved efficiency in Government and industry – all these will help to stimulate output. This faster growth will mean that we can combine higher wages with steadier prices to bring a real increase in living standards.

Under the last Conservative Government, wages rose twice as fast as prices, living standards rose three times as fast as they have under Labour, and Britain achieved one of the best records in Europe for steady prices.

The Labour Government’s policies have unleashed forces which no Government could hope to reverse overnight. The first essential is for the new Government to give a new lead. We will subject all proposed price rises in the public sector to the most searching scrutiny. If they are not justified, they will not be allowed. In implementing our policies, we will give overriding priority to bringing the present inflation under control.

Fair Deal at Work

There were more strikes in 1969 than ever before in our history. Already in the first three months of 1970 there were 1,134 strikes compared with 718 in the same period last year, when the Labour Government said the position was so serious that legislation was essential in the national interest. This rapid and serious deterioration directly stems from Labour’s failure to carry through its own policy for the reform of industrial relations.

We will introduce a comprehensive Industrial Relations Bill in the first Session of the new Parliament. It will provide a proper framework of law within which improved relation ships between management, men and unions can develop. We welcome the TUC’s willingness to take action through its own machinery against those who disrupt industrial peace by unconstitutional or unofficial action. Yet it is no substitute for the new set of fair and reasonable rules we will introduce.

We aim to strengthen the unions and their official leadership by providing some deter rent against irresponsible action by unofficial minorities. We seek to create conditions in which strikes become the means of last resort, not of first resort, as they now so often are.

Our new Act will establish clear rights and obligations for unions and employers. It will lay down what is lawful and what isn’t lawful in the conduct of industrial disputes. It will also introduce new safeguards for the individual – the right of appeal against unjust dismissal by an employer or unjust action by a union.

The framework of law we will establish will provide for agreements to be binding on both unions and employers. A new Registrar of Trades Unions and Employers’ Associations will ensure that their rules are fair, just, democratic, and not in conflict with the public interest. In the case of a dispute which would seriously endanger the national interest, our Act will provide for the holding of a secret ballot and for a ‘cooling-off period’ of not less than sixty days.

Associated with our new Act will be a Code of Practice laying down guidelines for good collective agreements and standards for good management and trade union practices in the individual company.

Training for Better Jobs

We want to help people seeking new and better jobs. This involves provision for redundancy, opportunities for retraining, the maintenance of living standards during retraining, and assistance – particularly with housing – for those who have to move. Existing arrangements are inadequate: they will be improved. We will stimulate a massive retraining programme for men and women in industry. We will closely examine the work of the Industrial Training Boards and the operation of the levy/grant system, so as to root out unnecessary bureaucracy and ensure the full support of industry and the closest co-operation with further and higher education.

We will also encourage wider and better provision for management training. Modern industry imposes new and heavy burdens on all levels of management. Good management is essential not only for efficiency and the proper use of capital resources, but also for the creation of good industrial relations.

Industrial Progress

Competitive free enterprise ensures choice for the consumer. Profitable free enterprise provides the resources for both capital investment and higher wages. We will pursue a vigorous competition policy. We will check any abuse of dominant market power or monopoly, strengthening and reforming the machinery which exists.

We reject the detailed intervention of Socialism which usurps the functions of management and seeks to dictate prices and earnings in industry. We much prefer a system of general pressures, creating an economic climate which favours, and rewards, enterprise and efficiency. Our aim is to identify and remove obstacles that prevent effective competition and restrict initiative.

We will sharpen the disclosure requirements in the accounts of public companies subject to an exemption procedure and reduce them for most private companies, and will institute an inquiry into other aspects of company law. As prosperity increases we will progressively reduce restrictions on overseas investment.

Small businesses have had a raw deal from Labour. They have had to suffer higher and more complicated taxes, and waste more time filling up forms. Our policies for reducing taxation and reducing government interference in industry will reduce the heavy burdens on the small firm. We will decide the best method of providing advice and encouragement for small businesses in the light of the Bolton Report.

We are totally opposed to further nationalisation of British industry. We will repeal the so-called Industrial Expansion Act which gives the Government power to use taxpayers money to buy its way into private industry. Specific projects approved by Parliament will continue to be given Government support. We will drastically modify the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation Act.

The quality and cost of transport services affect the fares and prices everyone pays. We will continue an expanding road programme, improving in particular roads in Scotland, Wales, the South West, and the development areas. 85 per cent of the freight throughout the country is carried by road. Cheap and efficient service must be combined with high standards of public safety. We will repeal the Labour Government’s law which would prevent lorries driving more than 100 miles without a specially obtained licence.

We will progressively reduce the involvement of the State in the nationalised industries, for example in the steel industry, so as to improve their competitiveness. An increasing use of private capital will help to reduce the burden on the taxpayer, get better investment decisions, and ensure more effective use of total resources.

The railways have a vital part to play in the modernisation of the transport system. They need to provide new passenger facilities, interchanges with the car and bus, and freight depots outside the urban areas. Shipping lines, hotels, parking facilities, catering services, vacant land, can all be developed more effectively in partnership with private enterprise. This will give better service to the public.

We will prevent the waste of £76 million on the nationalisation of the ports. We will end the uncertainty hanging over both large and small ports by giving them the freedom to build, in competition with each other but coordinated through a strong central authority.

The bureaucratic burden imposed upon industry by government departments, agencies and boards has steadily increased in recent years. We will see that it is reduced.

We will encourage investment through tax allowances or reductions rather than by means of grant – with differential arrangements in favour of the development areas. And the more flexible system of grants under the Local Employment Acts will be retained as an important part of our regional policy. These changes will be subject to transitional arrangements and will not in any way be retrospective. Special assistance for particular industries like shipping will be continued.

Prosperity For All Areas

We regard an effective regional development policy as a vital element in our economic and social strategy; economically, because both prosperous and less prosperous areas are affected by the present regional imbalance and waste of resources it involves; socially, because we are not prepared to tolerate the human waste and suffering that accompany persistent unemployment, dereliction and decline.

We will stimulate long-term growth by increasing the basic economic attraction of the areas concerned. This is a markedly different approach from that followed by Labour, who have five separate and often uncoordinated government departments spending very large sums of money with little regard to the practical effect. Despite the Government’s lavish spending of the taxpayer’s money during the last six years, in Scotland, Wales, and most regions of England there are hundreds of thousands fewer jobs. Since 1966, the country has experienced the longest period of high unemployment since the 1930s.

We will link expenditure more closely to the creation of new jobs, especially in industries with growth potential, and to improvements in the economic facilities of the development areas. We will maintain regional assistance to each development area. We will initiate a thorough-going study of development area policy as was recommended by the Hunt Committee. We will phase out the Regional Employment Premium, taking proper account of existing obligations and commitments. We will maintain financial incentives for investment in the development areas, making greater use of the powers given by the Local Employments Acts, and these powers will also be used where appropriate in the intermediate areas. We will give fairer treatment to the service industries and to commerce. We will give special attention to the needs of the development areas in our plans for a massive increase in retraining facilities.

Some resources could with advantage be switched from the present general subsidies towards the better training schemes and the infra-structure needed to make both development and intermediate areas more attractive to live in – and to invest in. More skilled workers, good housing, better schools, and first-class communications provide a surer long-term answer to the problems of regional development than indiscriminate financial hand-outs.

We will continue to provide financial assistance to the Northern Ireland Government so that all parts of Northern Ireland may enjoy the full benefits of United Kingdom prosperity.

Food and Farming

Farmers are frustrated and disgruntled. Labour has failed to allow British agriculture to expand and prosper. We will provide new opportunities for the farming community to increase production, improve their incomes, and make a further massive contribution through import-saving to the balance of payments.

We will retain the Annual Price Review system, the production grant system, and the marketing boards, but will introduce levies on imports in order to enable us to eliminate the need for deficiency payments in their present form. These levies, variable at very short notice, will deal effectively and immediately with dumping from overseas and will thus do away with the old cumbersome and slow procedures. The changeover will be spread over at least three years. The present support system will be maintained in full throughout this transitional period, although its cost will decline. Thereafter it will continue in the form of a ‘fall-back’ guarantee. Before the new system is introduced, there will be full discussions with our inter national suppliers and with the farmers’ unions.

This fundamental change will provide much-needed scope for agricultural expansion. The resultant small increase in food prices will amount to just over a penny in the £ per year on the cost of living for three years – a small increase in comparison with the five shillings in the £ rise of the last six years. The Exchequer will benefit by some £250 million, which can be used for tax reductions and for selective improvements in social security payments.

We will free from rates all buildings which a farmer uses for producing food from his land.

We will continue to encourage the development of British horticulture through the Horticultural Improvement Scheme. We will also maintain, and where appropriate expand, statutory provision through the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation, to encourage better and more uniform marketing of horticultural produce.

A thriving and expanding forestry industry can reduce dependence upon costly imported timber and can, particularly in Scotland, make good use of difficult land and provide a comparatively high level of employment.

We will promote the prosperity of the fishing industry, and will ensure that the home fishing industry is enabled to compete effectively in British markets without unfair competition from dumped imports.

Homes for All

New drive and impetus is urgently needed to reverse the biggest decline in the housing programme for a quarter of a century. Labour has failed to honour its pledge to build 500,000 houses a year by 1970. It is scandalous that this year, as last year, fewer houses will be completed than in 1964 when Labour took over. And far fewer are under construction. One million people to whom Labour promised a new home by 1970 are still waiting.

Our vigorous new housing drive for the 1970s will have three main objectives:

• To house the homeless, to concentrate on slum clearance and to provide better housing for those many families living without modern amenities.
• To bring about a great increase in home ownership so that the majority of our nation fulfil their wish to live in a home of their own.
• To see that the tenant, whether of a private property or of a council house, receives a fair deal.

Under the present subsidy system, too little help goes to the homeless and the badly housed; too little help also goes to provide housing for the elderly and the disabled. We will re-negotiate the housing subsidy system so that the full weight of Government assistance goes behind tackling the worst areas of our housing problems.

The problem of the homeless is concealed by unrealistic official statistics. We will lay down a more sensible definition, and then make sure that families without a home or living in intolerable conditions receive priority.

We seek a big increase in the programme of modernisation of our older houses, in co-operation with movements such as Shelter.

We will, in consultation with the voluntary housing movement, give a new momentum to housing associations, co-ownership and cost-rent groups. This movement, if encouraged and assisted in its organisation and financing, can do much to cope with and to care for the problems of the elderly and the homeless.

Too often those confronted with housing problems have nowhere to turn for advice. Housing advisory centres will be set up in co-operation with voluntary housing organisations and the local authorities. People will then have an easy means of discovering how they can apply for a council house or an improvement grant, how they can obtain a mortgage, how the ‘fair rent’ system works, or where to contact a housing association or a cost-rent society.

The number of new houses built for owner-occupation has declined month by month. The increase in the cost of new houses and the highest mortgage interest rates in our history have prevented thousands of young people from becoming owners of their own homes. Labour promised cheaper houses and lower mortgage interest rates. But today the mortgage repayments on the average-priced new house are £3 per week more than when Labour came to power.

Our policies to abolish the Selective Employment Tax and to abolish the Land Commission, and to get more land released for building, will help to keep down house prices.

We will make both the 100 per cent mortgage scheme and the mortgage option scheme more flexible.

The improvements we will make to the Save As You Earn scheme will encourage a larger flow of funds into building societies.

We will encourage local authorities to sell council houses to those of their tenants who wish to buy them. Thus many council house tenants of today will become the owners of their own homes tomorrow. As a result, more money will be immediately available for the local authorities to provide housing for the aged, for the disabled, and for those on the housing lists.

Our policies for encouraging home ownership will also mean that more council house tenants can move into homes of their own, thus releasing their council houses for those in need.

The present system of government council house subsidies is wasteful and inefficient; all too often those receiving subsidies are better off than those who pay for them through rates and taxes. We will change the system so that subsidies are used for adequate rent rebates for those tenants who cannot afford to pay fair rents, and also for slum clearance and other essential programmes.

We will maintain the security of tenure provisions of the 1965 Housing Act, and the fair rent system. We will continue the process – started under Labour’s Housing Act of 1969 – of their gradual extension to the remaining controlled tenancies.

We will review and improve the machinery of compensation to see that it is fair and just to those whose property is compulsorily purchased or adversely affected or blighted by road and redevelopment schemes.

Social Service Advance

The fundamental problem of all Britain’s social services – education, health, provision for the old and those in need – is the shortage of resources.

Of course money isn’t everything. Much will always depend on the devoted work and care of teachers, doctors, nurses, welfare workers of all kinds, both professional and voluntary. But too often today their most dedicated efforts are frustrated and undermined by inadequate facilities and never-ending worry about finance.

With Labour’s economic stagnation it is little wonder that in many cases these problems are getting steadily worse. The slow-down in economic growth which Labour Government has brought has already cost our country some £12,000 million in lost production. Even one-tenth of the revenue lost by the Government as a result of this stagnation would have paid for 100 hospitals and 1,000 schools.

In our last five years of Government, spending on the social services increased at a much faster rate in real terms than in the five years of Labour Government. Taking account of rising prices, Selective Employment Tax, the family allowance clawback, and the increased cost of unemployment benefit, our spending increased 36 per cent compared with only 25 per cent under Labour.

Our aim is to develop and improve Britain’s social services to the full: here too, tomorrow must be better than today.

Immediately we can help by establishing more sensible priorities. But the only true solution is to increase what we can afford. The theme and purpose of our policies for the economy is to enable government and people to work together to create new national wealth. Only then will there be a firm foundation for new social advance.

Better Education

In education above all the problem of resources is crucial. The number of children in the schools is rising. More and more are qualifying to go on to colleges, polytechnics and universities. That they should be able to develop their abilities to the full is not only right in itself but a vital national investment in the future.

Within the education budget itself, we shall shift the emphasis in favour of primary schools – the foundation on which all later education and training is built.

We also recognise the need for expansion of nursery education. This is especially important in areas of social handicap, such as the poorer parts of our large cities, where it is so vital to give children a better start.

In secondary education, a number of different patterns have developed over the years, including many types of comprehensive school. We will maintain the existing rights of local education authorities to decide what is best for their area.

They will take into account the general acceptance that in most cases the age of eleven is too early to make final decisions which might affect a child’s whole future. Many of the most imaginative new schemes abolishing the eleven-plus have been introduced by Conservative councils.

Local councils must ensure that the education they provide is the best for the children, taking into account the suitability of the buildings, the supply of staff, the travelling distances involved, the advice of teachers, and the wishes of parents and local electors. And they must be certain that they provide properly for the late developer. And they will naturally be slow to make irrevocable changes to any good school unless they are sure that the alternative is better.

We believe that the proper role of the central government is to satisfy itself that every local education authority provides education which will enable a child’s talents and abilities to be developed to the full, at whatever age these may appear. All children must have the opportunity of getting to ‘O’ level and beyond if they are capable of doing so.

We therefore believe that Labour’s attempt to insist on compulsory reorganisation on rigid lines is contrary to local democracy and contrary to the best interests of the children.

We will raise the school leaving age to sixteen as planned. Opportunities should be given to some children, under the authority of their head teacher, to take advantage in their final year of the facilities available in colleges of further education.

We will encourage the direct grant schools. Many of these schools have an excellent record and provide opportunities which may not otherwise be available for children of academic ability, regardless of their parents’ income.

Parents must have the freedom to send their children to independent schools if they wish.

The demand for higher and further education in universities, polytechnics and other colleges will increase during the 1970s. We will expand the number of places available.

Concern about teacher training is widespread. We will institute an inquiry into teacher training, as the Plowden Committee recommended. We wish the teaching profession to have a career structure which will attract recruits of high quality into the profession, and retain them.

Care for Those in Need

Between 1951 and 1964, Conservative Governments increased pensions five times, and the real value of the basic State pension rose by 50 per cent. We will review retirement pensions every two years to ensure that they at least maintain their purchasing power and that pensioners’ living standards are properly protected.

The next Conservative Government will take urgent action to give some pension as of right to the over-eighties who now get no retirement pension at all. We will improve the benefits payable to those who are seriously ill or disabled, and introduce a constant attendance allowance for the most seriously disabled. We will improve the present situation where a woman who is just over fifty when she is widowed gets a pension but a widow just under fifty gets nothing.

We will continue to ease the earnings rule for retirement pensions and we will also increase the additions to the pension which can be earned by postponing retirement beyond the minimum age.

We believe that everyone should have the opportunity of earning a pension related to their earnings. But, in contrast to the Labour Party, our view is that, for the great majority of people, this can and should be achieved through the expansion and improvement of occupational schemes. And we will ensure that everyone can take their pension rights with them when they change their job.

There are some people who may not be covered by an occupational scheme, and for them there will be a reserve earnings-related State scheme over and above the basic flat-rate scheme. But this is intended as a reserve scheme, and all approved occupational schemes will be enabled to contract out of it completely under simple conditions.

Labour’s complicated pension scheme would be unfair to existing pensioners and would harm the pension prospects of the twelve-and-a-half million members of occupational schemes. It would severely damage the growth of savings and mean ever-increasing taxation.

Our proposals will be fair to those who are now old, and also fair to those now working. Under Labour’s scheme their pension prospects would depend upon the willingness of future generations to pay an ever-increasing pensions bill through mounting taxation. Under our proposal, a growing part of the future cost of pensions will be met through genuine savings.

Retirement pensions, sickness, unemployment, widowhood and industrial injuries benefits will continue to be paid as of right, and without means tests, in return for National Insurance contributions. These contributions will be graduated according to earnings, and the present flat-rate contributions – which have become a heavy burden on the lower paid during recent years – will be abolished.

We will lower the age at which public service and armed forces pension increases become payable to fifty-five, and the pensions of those who retired before 1956 will be brought up to the same level as if they had retired then with appropriate increases since. The purchasing power of public service pensions will also be protected by a two-yearly review. Special treatment will be given to war pensioners and their widows.

We will take firm action to deal with abuse of the social security system. We will tighten up the administration so as to prevent the whole system being brought into disrepute by the shirkers and the scroungers.

We will tackle the problem of family poverty and ensure that adequate family allowances go to those families that need them. A scheme based upon negative income tax would allow benefits to be related to family need; other families would benefit by reduced taxation. The Government has exaggerated the administrative problems involved, and we will make a real effort to find a practical solution. If this can be done, it will increase incentive for those at work, and bring much-needed help to children living in poverty.

We welcome the recently announced improved rates of supplementary benefit.

More emphasis is required on the provision of care for the elderly, the chronic sick and handicapped people, and particularly on the expansion of those services which provide help in the home. We welcomed the Seebohm Report’s recommendations on local authority social services and supported the legislation which followed. We will, in consultation with the local authorities, improve local social services so that help is more readily available to those in need.

We recognise the important contribution to social welfare that volunteers and voluntary organisations are already making, and we believe there is scope for considerable expansion and development. We are convinced that many of the social problems that now scar society can only be solved through a genuine partnership of effort between statutory and voluntary organisations – between the professional and the volunteer.

We will give active support, both financially and legislatively, so that new opportunities may be created in co-operation with the local authorities for all those – and in particular the young people and the retired people – who want to do voluntary social work.

As a result of the slow rate of economic growth under Labour, the resources going into the Health Service are inadequate. There are too many outdated hospitals, too many old people not getting the care they need in their own homes, too many mentally ill people either in overcrowded hospital wards or getting insufficient care through local community services. And too many of those working in the health service lack a decent career structure.

We will improve the administration of the health service so that its three main branches – hospitals, general practitioners, and local health services – are better co-ordinated. This will mean better value for money and better care for the patient. We will also improve the ways of dealing with suggestions and complaints from both patients and staff.

In forward planning for health, we will put more emphasis on community services. This will enable more people to be looked after at home where they are happier, rather than n hospitals and residential institutions. We will increase the number of health centres and encourage more group practice to improve the working conditions for doctors.

Labour see ‘danger’ in the growth of private provision in health and welfare. We believe it right and proper that people should be free to provide for themselves and their families if they wish.

Race Relations and Immigration

Good race relations are of immense importance. We are determined that all citizens shall continue to be treated as equal before the law, and without discrimination. Our policies for education, health and housing will help to reduce the causes of racial tension. The sooner prosperity returns, the sooner additional resources will be available to tackle the problems of poverty, decay and squalor in our towns and cities. Local authority services are under great strain in many of the towns and cities where large numbers of immigrants have settled. We believe that additional funds should be made available to these local authorities in order that they can deal with these problems effectively without placing heavy burdens on their ratepayers.

We will establish a new single system of control over all immigration from overseas. The Home Secretary of the day will have complete control, subject to the machinery for appeal, over the entry of individuals into Britain. We believe it right to allow an existing Commonwealth immigrant who is already here to bring his wife and young children to join him in this country. But for the future, work permits will not carry the right of permanent settlement for the holder or his dependants. Such permits as are issued will be limited to a specific job in a specific area for a fixed period, normally twelve months. There will of course be no restrictions on travel.

These policies mean that future immigration will be allowed only in strictly defined special cases. There will be no further large scale permanent immigration.

We will give assistance to Commonwealth immigrants who wish to return to their countries of origin, but we will not tolerate any attempt to harass or compel them to go against their will.

Government and the Citizen

The Government in Whitehall is overloaded, and as a result people in the regions grow increasingly impatient about the decisions being made in London which they know could be better made locally. Under our new style of government, we will devolve government power so that more decisions are made locally.

Scotland, with its distinct identity, traditions and legal system, is particularly conscious of these problems.

The Report of the Committee set up under Sir Alec Douglas-Home offers a new chance for the Scottish people to have a greater say in their own affairs. Its contents, including the proposal for a Scottish Convention sitting in Edinburgh, will form a basis for the proposals we will place before Parliament, taking account of the impending re-organisation of local government.

We are publishing separate manifestos for Scotland and Wales.

We reaffirm that no change will be made in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland without the free consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

We support the Northern Ireland Government in its programme of legislative and executive action to ensure equal opportunity for all citizens in that part of the United Kingdom. We will provide the military and other aid necessary to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary in keeping the peace and ensuring freedom under the law; with the Ulster Defence Regiment as a strong and efficient reserve force capable of playing a significant role in maintaining peace and security.

The independence of local authorities has been seriously eroded by Labour Ministers. On many issues, particularly in education and housing, they have deliberately overridden the views of elected councillors. We think it wrong that the balance of power between central and local government should have been distorted, and we will redress the balance and increase the independence of local authorities.

We are convinced of the need for reform of the present structure of local government. Unfortunately, the Terms of Reference given to the Redcliffe-Maud and Wheatley Royal Commissions which examined this problem in England and in Scotland respectively were restricted. As a result, the crucial questions of devolution of power from the central government and of local government finance were not adequately dealt with in their Reports. We believe that these matters must be considered and that those concerned in local government must be fully consulted before final decisions are made.

We will bring forward a sensible measure of local government reform which will involve a genuine devolution of power from the central government and will provide for the existence of a two-tier structure. There will be full consultation about the pattern of boundaries and the effect of changes upon existing resources of local government.

We will ensure that the legitimate interests of existing local government staff are fully safeguarded in any changes made in the structure of local government. Similarly, reductions in the number of civil servants can be achieved by restricting recruitment and allowing the normal processes of retirement and resignation to reduce numbers. Adequate financial compensation will be paid to any civil servant or local government officer made redundant, and the career prospects of those who are transferred will be safeguarded.

Traditionally, changes in Parliamentary constituency boundaries are made on the recommendation of the impartial Boundaries Commission. The Labour Government has broken this tradition in order to gain an unfair advantage at this election. We will return to the previous honest and fair system.

Freedom Under the Law

Protection of the individual citizen is a prime duty of government. Urgent action is needed to check the serious rise in crime and violence. The Labour Government cannot entirely shrug off responsibility for the present situation since they restricted police recruitment at a critical time.

The best deterrent to crime is the likelihood of being caught. We will strengthen the police force. We will restore the prison building programme, taking special care to provide secure detention for the most dangerous criminals.

In some respects the law needs modernising and clarifying, and needs to be made less slow and cumbersome, particularly for dealing with offences – forcible entry, obstruction and violent offences concerned with public order – peculiar to the age of demonstration and disruption. A Conservative Government will do this.

We will also change the law so that the demonstrator who uses violence, or the criminal who causes personal injury or damages property, will be obliged to compensate his victim in addition to fines or other punishments imposed by the Courts.

A tolerant and civilised society must continue to permit its citizens to assemble, march and demonstrate in support of the ideals and principles they believe in. Our purpose is to protect the citizen against disruption of lawful activities and, to that end, we will immediately institute an inquiry into the law affecting trespass. Such a reform of the law would in no way inhibit the peaceful use of the right to demonstrate or strike.

We will eliminate unnecessary secrecy concerning the workings of the Government, and we will review the operation of the Official Secrets Act so that government is more open and more accountable to the public.

The functions and powers of government have expanded so much in recent years that the traditional safeguards for the citizen no longer suffice. Although we will reduce government activity and interference, a better system of control and examination of decisions by civil servants, public bodies and local authorities which affect individual citizens is also needed. Parliament during recent years has often passed government legislation which has infringed individual rights and given wide discretionary powers to Ministers and their civil servants. We will closely examine ways of safeguarding more effectively and equitably the rights and freedom of the individual citizen.

A Conservative Government introduced equal pay for women in the teaching profession, in local government, and in the non-industrial Civil Service in the 1950s. We have supported and sought to improve the equal pay legislation.

But this alone does not ensure genuine equality of opportunity. Many barriers still exist which prevent women from participating to the full in the entire life of the country. Women are treated by the law, in some respects, as having inferior rights to men, we will amend the law to remove this discrimination.

We will clear away the remaining anomalies in family law and make fairer provision for women in the event of separation or bereavement. We will help deserted wives by improving the enforcement of maintenance orders.

A Better Environment

Economic growth and technological innovation are the principal means of achieving a continuing improvement in our standard of living. But the effects of technological change can sometimes lead to a deterioration in the natural environment and in the quality of life. The public are rightly concerned about these dangers.

We will improve the machinery of government for dealing with these problems. We will review existing legislation to ensure proper and sensible control in the future. The damage of the past must be repaired. The worst scars are in and around our industrial cities and towns. We will ensure that the natural beauty of our British countryside and seashore is conserved and wild life is allowed to flourish.

We intend to launch a major campaign in which government, local authorities and voluntary organisations will combine to produce a healthier, pleasanter Britain. We will vigorously pursue international agreements for the safeguarding and improvement of the environment. We will set clearly defined aims and target-dates for the achievement of cleaner air and rivers, and for the clearance of derelict land.

The Arts, Broadcasting and Sport

We will continue to give full financial support and encouragement to the Arts. The Arts Council will be strengthened so that it can take a more active role in stimulating regional co-operation and in establishing effective regional arts associations. Local authorities will be encouraged to play a larger role in patronage of the Arts. We recognise the vital importance of private patronage. We will devote special attention to those areas of artistic life such as museums and music colleges which face particularly acute problems.

We believe that people are as entitled to an alternative radio service as to an alternative television service. We will permit local private enterprise radio under the general supervision of an independent broadcasting authority. Local institutions, particularly local newspapers, will have the opportunity of a stake in local radio, which we want to see closely associated with the local community.

We will ensure that the British Broadcasting Corporation continues to make its effective and essential public service contribution in both television and sound broadcasting. Equally, we will ensure that the independent television companies are not prevented from providing a responsible service by too high a government levy on their income.

The Sports Council is fulfilling an important function in carrying out research and advising the Government on capital investment in recreation by local authorities, and on grant-aid to voluntary organisations. We will make the Sports Council an independent body, and make it responsible for the grant-aiding functions at present exercised by the Government.

A Stronger Britain in The World

If we can negotiate the right terms, we believe that it would be in the long-term interest of the British people for Britain to join the European Economic Community, and that it would make a major contribution to both the prosperity and the security of our country. The opportunities are immense. Economic growth and a higher standard of living would result from having a larger market.

But we must also recognise the obstacles. There would be short-term disadvantages in Britain going into the European Economic Community which must be weighed against the long-term benefits. Obviously there is a price we would not be prepared to pay. Only when we negotiate will it be possible to determine whether the balance is a fair one, and in the interests of Britain.

Our sole commitment is to negotiate; no more, no less. As the negotiations proceed we will report regularly through Parliament to the country.

A Conservative Government would not be prepared to recommend to Parliament, nor would Members of Parliament approve, a settlement which was unequal or unfair. In making

this judgement, Ministers and Members will listen to the views of their constituents and have in mind, as is natural and legitimate, primarily the effect of entry upon the standard of living of the individual citizens whom they represent.

We will stand by our alliances and strengthen our defences. We will continue to make our contribution to the forces of NATO and will seek to revitalise this organisation which is basic to the defence of Britain.

In the past, British forces in the Gulf, and in Singapore and Malaysia, have helped to ensure stability beneficial to the countries concerned and without which Britain’s valuable interests would not have flourished. By unilaterally deciding to withdraw our forces from these areas by the end of 1971, the Labour Government have broken their promises to the Governments and peoples of these areas, and are exposing these British interests and the future of Britain’s friends to unacceptable risk.

We have proposed a five-power defence force to help maintain peace and stability in South-East Asia. We will discuss this with our allies and Commonwealth friends – Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore. Similar talks will be held with leaders in the Gulf.

We are satisfied that all these peacetime defence needs can be fulfilled by our Regular forces without the need for conscription. We deplore the destruction of the Territorial Army, and will provide adequate volunteer reserve forces for the defence and security of these islands.

We believe that Britain must in the last resort retain independent control of its nuclear weapons to deter an aggressor; as at present, those assigned to NATO can be withdrawn if supreme national interests are at stake.

We will foster the development of official and unofficial links within the Common wealth, believing that this unique organisation can be a force for peace and understanding. We believe that the independence of each of its members must be respected, and that their internal affairs and individual responsibilities are matters for their individual decision alone, and that jointly they should only consider those matters freely agreed upon as being of common interest.

We will give the United Nations full, constructive but not uncritical support. We will seek to build on its successes and to remedy its shortcomings. We intend to go on working for sound schemes of disarmament and arms control.

Labour has failed to solve the Rhodesian problem, to the detriment of all concerned. We will make a further effort to find a sensible and lust solution in accordance with the five principles which we have consistently maintained.

Britain must play a proper part in dealing with world poverty. We will ensure that Britain helps the developing countries:

• by working for the expansion of international trade;
• by encouraging private investment overseas;
• by providing capital aid and technical assistance to supplement their own efforts.

We have accepted the UNCTAD target for aid to developing countries, and will increase the British programme as national prosperity returns. We will re-examine the objectives and performance of the programme so that the maximum mutual advantage is gained.

The Choice

The choice before the electors today is not just between policies and programmes. It is about the way of life our country shall follow in the next five years, and far beyond that.

In purely practical terms, it is a choice between another five years of the kind of incompetent, doctrinaire Government we have had for nearly six years and a new and better style of Government.

Faced with any problem, the instinctive Socialist reaction is to control, to restrict, and to tax. We aim to reduce the burden of taxation, and to extend individual choice, freedom and responsibility.

Socialists believe in the extension of the power of the State: government today is trying to do too much, managing too much, bringing too much to the centre for decision. We plan to clear away from Whitehall a great load of tasks which has accumulated under Socialism; to hand back responsibilities wherever we can to the individual, to the family, to private initiative, to the local authority, to the people.

It is also a choice between a Government which by its conduct has done much to discredit the value of the politician’s word, and an alternative Government which is deter mined to restore honesty and integrity to political life.

Under a Conservative Government, the gap between the politician’s promise and government performance will be closed, so that people and government can be brought together again in one nation united in a common purpose – a better tomorrow.