IS LABOUR DIVIDED ?

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 251, 22 October 1924, Page 5

IS LABOUR DIVIDED ?

Tto Sunday newspaper, th<\ '"People," asserts that Labour is the most disunited party in the State. Mr. MacDonald has been bitterly criticised by a section of his followers for precipitating the election. The Cabinet meeting which was called to draw up the election campaign was sharply divided. Lord Haldane and Messrs. Mac Donald, Snowden, Thomas, Clynes, and Henderson refused to include in the party programme the nationalisation of the Bank of England, the organisation of State farming, the nationalisation of the milk supply, and Indian home rule, which the Labour Conference, which has been sitting in London, proposed. The Minister of Health (Mr. J. M. Wheatley), who has always been an extremist member of the Cabinet, and who is hoping to succeed Mr. Mac Donald, j wanted to go "the whole hog." The comhproinise which was subsequently reached will displease the Labour members from the Clyde. • j Commenting on Labour's manifesto,! the "Times" says that the march toward ' a Socialist Commonwealth which it fore-! shadowed, would be a march into an abyss. After the example of Bolshevism, Britain, assuredly, does not desire closer acquaintance with the moral and material fruits of Marxism. Consequently, pays the "Times," it is the duty of every loyal subject to prevent stich a march by every lawful means. BITING CRITICISM OF PREMIER ! The "Sunday Times," declaring that I holding office has changed Mr. Mac-1 Donald's temperament, says that a modi- j cum of political sagacity would have j avoided the election. "Mr. Mac Donald, wrapping 'himself in a mantle of semihysterical unctnousness," says the paper, "treated suggestions with a stage die- j tator's arrogance, preferring the chaos; of an election to curbing his vanity and j pique." The newspaper adds that the i Conservatives, relieved of the dear-food bogy, expect to win sufficient seats to obtain a narrow majority. Lord Birkenhead says that he believes that the Conservative gains will reach GO. The wartime organisation of an army corps is behind the whirlwind drive of the three parties, which must inevitably leave many political corpses in its path. Labour is showing remarkable ingenuity, and is employing every conceivable ruse to bring its propaganda to the fireside. It was the first party to demonstrate the utility of wireless as a political weapon. The principal newspapers received Labour political speeches on their own instruments, with their stenographers working in three-minute relays, beating telegraph and telephone services. i

TRADE AND POLITICS. The large London emporiums are cleverly utilising the election for their own ends. One has launched a "straw" ballot, and has sent a stamped and addressed post card to every twentieth elector throughout the country, asking how he voted at the last election, and how he intends to vote at this. The totals, which are published periodically,, show which way the wind is blowing. In the meantime, the newspapers are offering huge prizes for a forecast of the correct result. The "Daily Mail" heads the list with fSOOO, or £5 a week for life.

SOME OF THE CANDIDATES. The opponents of the Colonial Secretary (Mr. J. H. Thomas) include Mrs. Hiilse (Conservative), former Mayoress of I?erby. • > Dr. W. A. Chappie, formerly of New Zealand, is a candidate for Dumfries. . The Solicitor-General, Sir H. Slesser, K.C. (Labour), and Major W. T. Whiteley, the son of Lord Marchamley (Liberal) have been adopted as candidates for the Leeds S.E. constituency, the seat of Mr. J.. O'Grady, who has been appointed Governor of Tasmania. The Communist and Pardee, SaklatvaJa, has been adopted as the unofficial Labour candidate for North Battersea. He previously held the seat, but was defeated at the last election. All parties are especially appealing to "women voters. The Conservatives have organised 000 -women's meetings to be, held daily. Mr. Stanley Baldwin's son Oliver is the Labour candidate for Dudley, pre-; viously held by a Conservative, Mr. Cyril G. Lloyd. .!•.** DUNGHEAP TALK. •Mr. Winston Churchill, at a meeting at Epping, said: "You would not think Mac Donald was still Premier, in view of the' language he uses. No Prime Minister ever collapsed so pitifully in the hour of conflict as Britain's first Socialist Prime Minister. Mr. MacDonald described, his opponents as mangy curs sniffling round dungheaps. I wonder what dungheaps Mr. MacDonald has descended'to levels where no Prime Minister ever demeaned himself before.* , FEWER AUSTRALASIANS. An analysis of the nominations indicates that fewer Australians and New Zealanders are standing than last year. Those nominated include:—Conservatives: Guy Gaunt (Buekrose), Captain Griffyth Fairfax (Norwich), Alan Burgoyne (Aylesbury), Sir Lucas Tooth (Isle of Ely), Sir Newtown Moore (Richmond), Sir Gerald Strickland(Lancaster), Grigg (Oldhani), P. M. B. Fisher ' (Newcastle Central). Liberals: Harney (South Shields), Chappie (Dumfries), Harris (Bethnal Green), Gilbert Murray (Oxford), Molden (West Islington). Labourites: Scurr (Mile End), Muriel Matters Porter (Hastings). Last year'.s candidates not standing include Messrs. Pilkington and Norton Griffiths. The Conservative battlocry for the~final week's campagn is: "Work for clear majority and relief from elections." A scrutiny of nominations show forty-one women standing, including Labourite Mrs. Bertrand KusselLOliver Baldwin, son of the Conservative ex-Prime Minister, is the political antithesis of his father. He is a young man with a relish for adventure, and during the war he served in the Balkans. He told a Labour meeting some time ago that the party headed by his father was "as bankrupt in legislation as in brains, standing solely for jrent, interest, and profit."' "When a Tory died," he added, amid great laughter, "the fact was disclosed by the letters 'R.I.P.' on his tombstone."—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)

TROTSKY'S PREDICTION. A TILT AT MacDONALD. ' .■ •■ .- ■ MOSCOW, October 21. Trotsky predicts a Conservative victory, because- he claims that Mr. Mac"Donald is too cowardly to initiate a fullblooded working-class revolution. "In the event of MaeDonald's defeat Lord Curzon will probajbly prevent the Russian loan from materialising, but," he added, "we will endeavour to exist ■without it!"—" Times.")