POLITICS IN BRITAIN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 10169, 26 July 1924, Page 5

POLITICS IN BRITAIN

LLOYD GEORGE'S CHANCES. AT ANOTHER ELECTION. LONDON, July 14. Indications are not lacking here that a general election may be expected in the not far distant future, and that the newspaper proprietors and other prominent business men, popularly supposed to have a hand in euidine political destinies, are .arranging for a great Lloyd George "eome"l few weeks back a speech by Mr Lloyd George in Parliament was loudly trumpeted throughout the Press. Then came his speeches in Manchester; and last Tuesday's speech at Lord Beaverbrook's dinner to Empire Pressmen, and now there is the report ol bis inquiry into mining. Mori has been heard of Mr Lloyd George within the past month than since the famous Carlton Club episode in October, 1922, when the Conservatives decided to break away from tne Coalition Ministry. All this isoomcident with Mr Ramsay MacDonald s most serious test. Mr MacDonald has failed to accomplish anything spectacular in Home politics, unemployment and housing being much as hefound them, while in the Empire held he has made few friends. The foreign situation only remains, and the powers behind the scenes obviously believe that the Herriot-MacDonald combination is not strong enough to effect any appreciable clearing-up of the European muddle. n . Mr Baldwin is committed to protection, and he cannot swing the electorate It is known that Mr MacDonald has antagonised the more extreme sections of Labour, but the middle-class electorates are an unknown factor.