Capt. Reynolds at Conisbro’ – A Breezy Meeting.

May 1924

Mexborough & Swinton Times, May 17rd

Capt. Reynolds at Conisbro’.

A Breezy Meeting.

The campaign which the Don Valley Conservative Association has been carrying on this week in the Division, was continued at Coinsbrough, on Wednesday evening. Mr. F Ogley, J.P., presided over a meeting in the Church Hall. The attendance was small, and the speakers found a good deal of opposition, interruptions being fairly frequent.

Capt. Reynolds suggested that the next election would be a fight to keep out the Socialism, and asked all who were not satisfied with the country’s present constitution to give their support in that fight. The last election was merely  ‘a preliminary canter’ for the Labour Party, who, he went on to declare, were practically under the control of the Communists and other extremists.   As illustration of this, he pointed to the new secretary of the Ministers’ Federation. He also referred to the proceedings at the recent Communist Conference at Salford, and the intention there expressed to remain in the Labour Party and attempt to the capture the leadership.

In his criticisms of the Government, Capt. Reynolds dealt principally with the Budget and unemployment. He was vehement in his denunciation of the recognition of Russia and the ‘turning down’ of the Colonies. The good thing is the Budget, the reductions of the tea and sugar taxes, were made possible only by the careful handling of finance by the previous Government; and Capt. Reynolds clearly thought that these benefits had been largely discounted by the failure to apply the Conservative cure for unemployment – Imperial Preference – and the taking off of the McKenna Duties.

The people of Russia he described as ‘nothing but a lot of cut-throats,’ ‘They want your money,’ he declared. Voices the broke in: ‘ The Conservatives will get it,’ and another: ‘They’ve got it.’

Going on, Capt. Reynolds said he could not understand Russia being recognised in this way, and our own Colonies turned down. ‘Are you English?’ he demanded. And the reply from the member of the audience was: ‘I’m mixed breed.’ (Laughter.)

There were several other interruptions of this sort, and they were particularly vehement when Capt. Reynolds, depreciating the abuse of the capitalist, said: ‘With all the hatred  of him, and the rotten way in which he has treated you-which is a lie in many cases-at any rate he finds you your wages every Friday.’

A Voice: Aye, and profits.

A women’s voice: They’ve got to work hard enough for wages.

Mr. Worsey had a fairly quiet hearing until he touched on the Budget. He had set out to prove that Capitalism was not to blame for unemployment, and in support of the contention, quoted America, ‘the greatest capitalist country is the world,’ and the volume of work she found, not only for her citizens, but for great numbers from other countries; and the standards of her wages. England, in two years following the Armistice, experienced a period of industrial prosperity, high wages, and good conditions, never before equalled. But the occurred 2,298 industrial disputes.

While we were fighting among ourselves, other were collaring our market. A little country like Belgium recovered 80 per cent. of her pre-war trade in three years. There was only one solution of the unemployment problem: We must produce goods and raw materials to sell at prices people would pay in the markets of the world. In his opinion the McKenna Duties should have been doubled and extended.

Going on to criticise Socialism, Mr. Worsey said that it was ‘a dreamy economic theory’ which was quite impracticable. It had been tried in all parts of the civilised world, and had everyone proved a ghastly failure.

While making a general criticism of the Budget – which he called a very clever one – he said that, instead of making cheaper ‘the rich man’s motor car,’ the Chancellor might have taken a penny per pint off the poor man’s beer. He played on this point a little until a women’s voice broke in: ‘Children don’t drink beer.’ The speaker asked why, as an alternative, Mr Snowden had not taken more off tea and sugar, and left the motor cars alone?