chaos which every month becomes increasingly disastrous. The 
Government has aggravated its distress and increased its perils by 
lengthening the hours of labour, in- spite of the denunciation of that 
policy by a Royal Commission ; has made war upon the mineworkers as 
though they were a foreign enemy; and, at the command of the mine- 
owners, has refused to introduce even the cautious instalments of 
reform recommended by the Commission appointed by itself. The 
plight of iron and steel, shipbuilding, cotton, and other essential 
industries is but little less alarming than that of coal. The attitude of 
the Government towards them has been marked by the same persistent 
sacrifice of national interests to the selfish demands of short-sighted 
employers. 
The Betrayal of the Children 
The children of to-day are the nation of to-morrow, and no 
expenditure adds more certainly to national wealth than that which is 
devoted to developing their powers. The Government has systematically 
impeded the educational activities of Local Authorities, and has 
compelled them to submit to limiting standards arbitrarily imposed by 
the President of the Board of Education. 
The Betrayal of the Homeless 
The housing conditions of large numbers of our fellow-countrymen 
are, by general consent, a menace to the health of the nation and a 
scandal to its humanity. 
The attitude of the Government towards the Housing problem, on 
the one hand, and towards its supporters among the rural landlords, on 
the other, is revealed by the fact that, whilst it has diminished the State 
subsidy on houses built under the Acts of 1923 and 1924 by an amount 
=quivalent to £25 per house, so that for a new house built under the 
Tories’ own Act of 1923 the subsidy has been reduced to £50, it has 
nevertheless allowed £100 of public money to be devoted to the 
improvement of an existing rural cottage, which remains the private 
property of the landlord. In spite of its emphatic declaration that the 
slums must be destroyed, it has taken no adequate step to aid the 
Local Authorities which are confronted with this grave and pressing 
srobleni. 
The Betrayal of the Industrial Worker 
Factory legislation and minimum wage legislation are indispensable 
safeguards against the downward pressure of unregulated competition 
on the workers’ standard of life. The Conservative Home Secretary 
first emasculated the Factory Bill prepared by the Labour Government, 
and later, in obedience to pressure from interested quarters, shelved it 
altogether. The Conservative Minister of Labour has steadily opposed 
the extension of the Trade Boards Act to industries at present outside 
its scone.