| 1 | ‘Stop electing life peers’. |
| 2 | By Trevor Williams. |
| 3 | A move to stop Mr Gaitskell from nominating any more labour life peers is to be made at a meeting of labour MPs tomorrow. |
| 4 | Mr Michael Foot has put down a resolution on the subject and he is to be backed by Mr Will Griffiths, MP for Manchester Exchange. |
| 5 | Though they may gather some left-wing support, a large majority of labour MPs are likely to turn down the Foot-Griffiths resolution. |
| 6 | ‘Abolish Lords’. |
| 7 | Mr Foot's line will be that as labour MPs opposed the government bill which brought life peers into existence, they should not now put forward nominees. |
| 8 | He believes that the House of Lords should be abolished and that labour should not take any steps which would appear to ‘prop up’ an out-dated institution. |
| 9 | Since 1958, 13 labour life peers and peeresses have been created. |
| 10 | Most labour sentiment would still favour the abolition of the House of Lords, but while it remains labour has to have an adequate number of members. |
| 11 | Africans drop rivalry to fight Sir Roy. |
| 12 | By Dennis Newson. |
| 13 | The two rival African nationalist parties of Northern Rhodesia have agreed to get together to face the challenge from Sir Roy Welensky, the federal Premier. |
| 14 | Delegates from Mr Kenneth Kaunda's united national independence party (280,000 members) and Mr Harry Nkumbula's African national congress (400,000) will meet in London today to discuss a common course of action. |
| 15 | Sir Roy is violently opposed to Africans getting an elected majority in Northern Rhodesia, but the colonial Secretary, Mr Iain Macleod, is insisting on a policy of change. |
| 16 | Sir Roy's united federal party is boycotting the London talks on the protectorate's future. |
| 17 | Said Mr Nkumbula last night: |
| 18 | ‘We want to discuss what to do if the British government gives in to Sir Roy and the talks fall through. |
| 19 | There are bound to be demonstrations.’ |
| 20 | All revealed. |
| 21 | Yesterday Sir Roy's chief aide, Mr Julius Greenfield, telephoned his chief a report on his talks with Mr Macmillan at Chequers. |
| 22 | Mr Macleod went on with the conference at Lancaster House despite the crisis which had blown up. |
| 23 | He has now revealed his full plans to the Africans and liberals attending. |
| 24 | These plans do not give the Africans the overall majority they are seeking. |
| 25 | African delegates are studying them today. |
| 26 | The conference will meet to discuss the function of a proposed House of Chiefs. |
| 27 | No secret talks — Macleod. |
| 28 | By Hugh Pilcher. |
| 29 | Mr Iain Macleod, the colonial Secretary, denied in the Commons last night that there have been secret negotiations on Northern Rhodesia's future. |
| 30 | The Northern Rhodesia conference in London has been boycotted by the two main settlers' parties — the united federal party and the dominion party. |
| 31 | But representatives of Sir Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the central African federation, went to Chequers at the week-end for talks with Mr Macmillan. |
| 32 | Northern Rhodesia is a member of the federation. |
| 33 | Mr Macleod was not at the week-end meeting. |
| 34 | But he told MPs yesterday: |
| 35 | ‘I have no knowledge of secret negotiations.’ |
| 36 | He said Britain had an obligation to consult the federal government. |
| 37 | But the final decision remained with the British government. |
| 38 | Mr James Callaghan, labour's colonial spokesman, said Sir Roy had no right to delay progress in the talks by refusing to sit round the conference table. |
| 39 | Mr Macleod thought the two Rhodesian parties had refused to attend the talks because Sir Roy had found messages sent from the government were ‘unsatisfactory.’ |
| 40 | African delegates to the talks yesterday called on Mr Macmillan to cease his negotiations with Sir Roy's representative, Mr Julius Greenfield. |
| 41 | He was at Chequers last week-end. |
| 42 | They said they regarded with ‘growing anger’ the ‘gross and unconstitutional’ interference by Sir Roy's federal government in the talks. |
| 43 | Informal talks at Lancaster House will resume today. |
| 44 | Deep south smears Jack's negro. |
| 45 | President Kennedy today defended the appointment of a negro as his housing Minister. |
| 46 | It has aroused strong opposition from the anti-Negro senators of the deep south. |
| 47 | The negro is Mr Robert Weaver of New York. |
| 48 | One of his tasks will be to see there is no racial discrimination in government and state housing projects. |
| 49 | Senator Allen Ellender, of Louisiana, sparked off the opposition by telling a television audience it was ‘current Washington gossip’ that Weaver once had communist affiliations. |
| 50 | A letter. |
| 51 | The Senate banking committee, which is headed by another southern Senator — Willis Robertson, of Virginia — met today in closed session to discuss Weaver's appointment. |
| 52 | Senator Robertson later disclosed he had sent a letter to Mr Kennedy saying he had received several complaints about Weaver's loyalty. |
| 53 | He said these concerned Mr Weaver's alleged association with organisations black-listed by the government. |
| 54 | Immediately Mr Kennedy rushed a letter to Senator Robertson saying the federal bureau of investigation had reported on Mr Weaver. |
| 55 | He believed he would perform ‘outstanding service’ in his post. |
| 56 | Senator Robertson's committee has to pass Mr Weaver's nomination before it can be considered by the full Senate. |
| 57 | Gold-hunting Kennedy shocks Dr A. |
| 58 | Germany must pay. |
| 59 | Offer of <pound>357 m is too small. |
| 60 | President Kennedy is ready to get tough over West Germany's cash offer to help America's balance of payments position. |
| 61 | He said bluntly in Washington yesterday that the offer — <pound> 357 million — was not good enough. |
| 62 | And he indicated that his government would try to get Germany to pay more. |
| 63 | He did not mention personal talks with Dr Adenauer, the West German Chancellor. |
| 64 | But he said discussions ‘on a higher level than in the past’ might be useful. |
| 65 | The President will probably discuss the problem with Dr Brentano, the West German foreign Minister, who is due in Washington next week. |
| 66 | A big slice of Germany's ‘aid’ is the early payment of a <pound> 210 million debt to America. |
| 67 | United States officials quickly point out that this is money due to America anyway. |
| 68 | And they are unimpressed by the Germans' claim that they can not pay more than <pound> 357 million without upsetting their own economy. |
| 69 | The Americans say Germany is having it too good and is not paying for the past or for the present. |
| 70 | Tough spot. |
| 71 | The Adenauer government flatly rejected attempts by the Eisenhower government to get them to pay a regular sum towards the cost of keeping American troops in Germany. |
| 72 | These support costs are a big drain on America's dollar reserves. |
| 73 | Dr Adenauer's answer is the once-and-for-all cash offer of <pound> 357 million. |
| 74 | President Kennedy's rejection of it is a painful blow to the West German government. |
| 75 | It will now have to pay more — and increase taxation to do so — or run the obvious risks in upsetting the new American administration. |
| 76 | And, since this is election year in West Germany, Dr Adenauer is in a tough spot. |
| 77 | Waiting. |
| 78 | Joyce Egginton cables: |
| 79 | President Kennedy at his Washington press conference admitted he did not know whether America was lagging behind Russia in missile power. |
| 80 | He said he was waiting for his senior military aides to come up with the answer on February 20. |
| 81 | This surprising statement was a sharp about-face from his warnings during the presidential election campaign. |
| 82 | He claimed slackness in the Eisenhower administration had caused America to lag behind Russia in nuclear development. |
| 83 | President Kennedy did his best to avoid giving pressmen a direct answer. |
| 84 | Horrified. |
| 85 | That's a tory doctor's reaction to the new health charges, says George Brown. |
| 86 | ‘Probe the drug profits and don't take it out of mothers and children’. |
| 87 | By Hugh Pilcher. |
| 88 | Two men who are poles apart in personality last night dominated parliament's fiercest battle since the 1959 election — Mr George Brown and Mr Enoch Powell, the health Minister. |
| 89 | Mr Brown, passionate and warm-hearted, led labour's attack on the higher health charges. |
| 90 | Mr Powell, white-faced and outwardly unemotional, replied with a statistical statement — and ended by inciting labour MPs to angry uproar. |
| 91 | One dealt with the human issue behind the health service; the other tried to show that the balance-sheet must always come first. |
| 92 | The result of the vote was not in doubt. |
| 93 | For the tories were massed in answer to their whips to defeat a censure motion on the government for ‘undermining the health service’ and placing heavy burdens on those least able to bear them. |
| 94 | Mr Brown declared that the policy under censure was monstrous. |
| 95 | It had offended many people far beyond the ranks of labour supporters. |
| 96 | The press, many doctors and public were denouncing the proposals. |
| 97 | The letter. |
| 98 | He quoted from this letter which Mr Gaitskell had received: |
| 99 | ‘My background is a doctor of 68, who has practised medicine for 43 years, chiefly as a panel doctor. |
| 100 | ‘I am a lifelong conservative. |
| 101 | I am horrified and amazed by my party's proposal to prostitute the whole principle of the state service and to render that service a hardship to poor people. |
| 102 | ‘After a lifetime of helping others and healing the sick, my considered opinion is that anybody supporting the increased charges is a wicked, old —.’ |
| 103 | Mr Brown went on: |
| 104 | ‘We are dealing with a noble edifice which needs an imaginative architect to improve it, but it has got a quantity surveyor. |
| 105 | We have descended from the real problems to fiddling about with bills of cost. |
| 106 | ‘We believe that a comprehensive medical service, free to the patient at the point of need and with one standard for all sick people, is good and attainable.’ |
| 107 | Different. |
| 108 | ‘We remain for it. |
| 109 | But the tories never were.’ |
| 110 | Interrupted by angry tories, Mr Brown retorted: ‘The jackals bay when there is nothing better they can do.’ |
| 111 | He told them that their conception of social services was wholly different — fundamentally different from that of labour. |
| 112 | They would provide an ambulance service for the absolutely wretched — but it would not be too comfortable nor too easy to get. |
| 113 | Answering jeers that it was labour which first put a ceiling on health spending and started charges, Mr Brown reminded the hostile government benches that was done in 1950 because of the financial strain of the Korean war. |
| 114 | In fact, the tories made it worse now for the sick and needy than labour had to make it in 1950. |
| 115 | And as a percentage of social service expenditure, health had fallen from 28.5 to 23.1 per cent. |
| 116 | Then Mr Brown swung his attack directly to the unsmiling Mr Powell. |
| 117 | He demanded that instead of taking it out of the patients Mr Powell should take ruthless action against the drug making industry, whose profits had risen by up to 400 per cent in the last eight years. |
| 118 | ‘Mr Powell finds it easier to take it out of mothers, children and sick people than to take on this vast industry,’ Mr Brown commented icily. |
| 119 | ‘Let us have a full inquiry into the cost of drugs and the pharmaceutical industry.’ |
| 120 | The health of children today owed much to the welfare food scheme. |
| 121 | It was maintained during the war. |
| 122 | Now in conditions of tory affluence it seemed it could not be carried on. |
| 123 | When Mr Brown sat down labour MPs cheered for a full minute — and even his bitterest opponents on defence joined in. |
| 124 | The choice. |
| 125 | Mr Powell devoted half his speech to giving details of plans for improving the hospital service, on which indeed the government is making progress. |
| 126 | His basic defence of the health service cuts was that ‘even after the proposed changes the net cost of the service to the exchequer will have increased over three years by 20 per cent. |
| 127 | ‘That can not continue without either development being limited or an adjustment being made in financing.’ |
| 128 | The government decided to adjust the financing — which Mr Powell claimed was underpinning — not undermining — the service. |
| 129 | Answering the attack on ‘economic charges’ for welfare foods, Mr Powell said that all these foods would still be free in families receiving regular national assistance grants. |
| 130 | Of the doubled prescription charge his argument was: |
| 131 | ‘It is ludicrous exaggeration to say that by and large a 2 s charge is any more of a burden than a 1 s charge was in 1949.’ |
| 132 | ‘Resign’. |
| 133 | Uproar from the labour side grew as Mr Powell made more and more claims with which MPs disagreed. |