Orders of the Day — Political Parties (Accounts)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 15 Rhagfyr 1949.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Arthur Greenwood Mr Arthur Greenwood , Wakefield 12:00, 15 Rhagfyr 1949

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Northern Dorset (Mr. Byers) on a very gallant speech. I shall have something to say about the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) in a few minutes, and it will not be couched in* too kind language. I first address myself to the purpose of this discussion and this Debate.

In the "Daily Telegraph" yesterday, Mr. Colin Coote had an article covering very wide ground, most of which would be out of Order tonight, and in the article he said: The only connection between this Motion "— that is, the Motion on the Order Paper today— and the election expenses stunt is that both seek to create prejudice against the Conservatives. Now, this is the sentence I want to read, and there is in it a word which I hope to heaven will never disgrace an English dictionary.

The insinuation is that the Conservative Party is secretly subventioned "— What a word! I gather what he means, however— by 'big business' and much more wealthy than the Socialists. I say now that that is not an insinuation; I say it is a fact. The Tory Party are subventioned by big business and I am not ashamed to say so tonight.

I turn to the substance of this Debate. The question is: Where did the Tories get their money? I watched their fund with very considerable interest. I refer again to the article in the "Daily Telegraph ": There is, in fact, nothing secret about the sources of Conservative funds; and all Socialist chatter about the ' Woolton million mystery' is completely vapid: Lord Woolton raised his fund by collections from clubs, constituencies and institutes "— of a democratic type— and from many thousands of individual subscribers, every one of them voluntary in the sense that some subscribers to Socialist funds are not. I remember a statement made by Lord Woolton, made with tears in his voice, with pride and with humility, as to how this sum was raised in humble half-crowns and so on by the common people. It takes an awful lot of half-crowns to make a million pounds. The hon. Member for Northern Dorset is right, and I support him, when he says that that fund raised a good deal more than a million pounds.

The Tory argument tonight has been most astonishing. The real argument is that we do not tell them enough—not that we tell them something, but that we just do not tell them as much as they would like to know. They have the snooper's mind. The hon. Member for Oxford showed tonight that he had the snooper's mind, sneaking round to find out more than we tell. The point is that the Tory Party do not tell us anything. I refer again to the "Daily Telegraph"—a cross-heading: "No secret Tory source." That interested me. The article said: If the Conservative Party published their accounts on the lines of the Socialist accounts, I doubt whether any Socialist could discover who had contributed. But the real secret is this; this is how we can find out: The Socialists could, however, find out whether any ' big business' had in fact contributed, if not from the published accounts of a firm, then by asking at the statutory general meeting of shareholders. This really is shadow-boxing on the part of the Tory Party.