Churchill to Britons

In the second half of his world broadcast this week, Winston Churchill told his people how they might have postwar peace and prosperity at home. Said the Prime Minister: "I am very much attracted to the idea that we should make and proclaim what might be called a Four-Year Plan. Four years seems to me to be the right length for a period of transition and reconstruction which will follow the downfall of Hitler." In general but noble terms, Winston Churchill then enunciated the foundations on which he thought the Plan should be constructed.

Democracy. ". . . As soon as the defeat of Germany has removed the danger now at our throats and the [electoral] register can be compiled and other necessary arrangements made, the new House of Commons must be freely chosen by the whole electorate including, of course, the armed forces, wherever they may be."

Beveridge Plan. ". . . We must beware of attempts to overpersuade or even coerce His Majesty's Government to bind themselves or their unknown successors in conditions which no one can foresee. . . . [But] the time is now ripe for another great advance. . . . You must rank me and my colleagues as strong partisans of national compulsory insurance for all classes, for all purposes from the cradle to the grave."

Health. "We must establish on broad and solid foundations a national health service. ... If this country is to keep its high place in the leadership of the world and to survive as a great power that can hold its own against external pressure, our people must be encouraged by every means to have larger families. . . ."

Education. "I hope our education will become broader and more liberal. . . . Nobody who can take advantage of higher education should be denied this chance. . . . We must make plans for part-time release from industry so that our young people may have the chance to carry on their general education and also to obtain specialized education. . . ."

Housing. "We have one large immediate task in the planning and rebuilding of our cities and towns. This will make a very great call on our resources but it is also an immense opportunity not only for improvement of our housing but for employment. . . ."

Inflation. ". . . . Over a period of ten or 15 years there ought to be a fair, steady continuity of values. . . . We have successfully stabilized prices during the war. We intend to continue this policy."

Taxes. "We must expect taxation after the war to be heavier than it was before the war, but we do not intend to ... destroy initiative and enterprise."

Employment. "[We must] make sure that we have projects for the future employment of people and a forward movement of our industries, carefully foreseen, and secondly that private enterprise and state enterprise are both able to play their parts to the utmost. . . . We must strive to secure our fair share of an augmented foreign trade."

The National Interest. ". . . If we act with comradeship and loyalty to our country and to one another and if we can make state enterprise and free enterprise both serve national interests and pull the national wagon side by side, then there is no need for us to run into that horrible, devastating slump or into that squalid epoch of bickering and confusion which mocked and squandered the hard-won victory which we gained a quarter of a century ago."

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