In Opposition
At the 1951 general election Morris' majority was again reduced to 2,160. He criticised the new Conservative Government's approach to railways, describing the Transport Bill introduced in 1952 as giving the Minister powers that would "make him the virtual dictator of transport" and "the Führer of British transport". He carried his opposition through the Bill's Parliamentary stages and after it had come into force he said he believed it had been prompted by the Government's need to repay a political debt to the Road Haulage Association. Morris pledged that a Labour government would renationalise road haulage when it got the opportunity.
Morris was the lead speaker for the opposition in a debate on the tinplate industry in January 1953, in which he called for a full-time Minister for Wales instead of it being one of the responsibilities of the Home Secretary. In September 1953 he brokered a solution to a dispute between Swansea market meat traders and the Ministry of Food over the distribution of 30 sides of fat beef. In 1954 he was one of five Members of Parliament to tour British colonial territories in the far east.
Read more about this topic: Percy Morris
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“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
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