preservation of peace. The work and achievement of the Labour Party
show how deeply it is committed to these causes.
Naturally, therefore, the Party warmly welcomes the newly
enfranchised women into the ranks of the nation’s citizens. It believes
that the idealism, ardour and enthusiasm of the new generation of
electors should be harnessed to public affairs, and that the recently
enfranchised women will find in the Party and its aims the living
expression of their aspirations for a new and nobler social order.
The Development of the Social Services
While the foundation of social reconstruction must be the
reorganisation of the economic system, for more intelligent, and,
therefore, more efficient, production, the Labour Party does not forget
that human beings do not live by bread alone, and that industry exists
for man, not man for industry. Accepting to the full the implications
of the familiar words, as neglected as they are trite, “There is no wealth
but life,”’ it will direct its policy to bringing within the reach of all the
opportunities of physical health, personal decency and comfort, and
intellectual culture, which hitherto have been confined to a minority.
In contrast with those who deplore an increased expenditure upon
social services as an economic burden, the Labour Party regards such
services, defective as they still are, as among the most important
additions made in the last half-century to the real wealth of the
community, and expenditure devoted to their wise extension, not as a
liability, but as one of the most precious of national assets. It will
seek to develop them, therefore, by all means within its power.
It will increase the worker’s security by establishing a system of
adequate maintenance during involuntary unemployment, and by
reducing the age at which he becomes entitled to an old age pension.
It will diminish his liability to sickness, and the loss which he incurs
when sickness supervenes, by improving his environment and by
securing that suitable treatment is available for all. It will broaden
the culture and enrich the spirit of the nation by so extending the
scope and improving the quality of the educational system that every
child may possess, according to its capacity and tastes, the fullest
opportunities for intellectual, moral. and physical development.
The Most Cruel of Inequalities
At ence the gravest of economic extravagances and the most
cruel of social inequalities is the prevalence of preventable disease,
which exists to-day, among large sections of the population, on the scale
of a natlonal institution. Health, as the Chief Medical Officer of the
nation has so often told us, is largely a purchasable commodity, and
rhose who cannot afford to buy it for themselves must go without it,
snless the community will aid in procuring it for them. The establishment
of such collective provision through the unconscious socialism of the
Public Health and Educational Services is among the most splendid of
the achievements of the last three generations, but there is still a long
road to be travelled before it can be said that disease and death have
ceased to be respecters of persons.
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