The Press. Monday, December 30, 1918. The British Election.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16407, 30 December 1918, Page 6

The Press. Monday, December 30, 1918. The British Election.

To-day we are able to print abundant particulars of the general election in Britain, and although the final results ure not yet available, it is clear that tbe expectations of a great victory for the Coalition have been fully realised. One of the progress reports gave figures showing the Coalitionists in a majority of three to one, and the latest report, covering 667 6eats, gives the Government a majority of more than 150 over the other parties combined. A large majority was inevitable in view of the facts: the Unionist Party was practically solid for the Government, the Liveral Party was split by the antagonism between Mr Asquith and Mr Lloyd George, and the Opposition Liberal vote suffered through Labour competition. In the last Parliament the two main parties, Unionist and Liberal, were almost equal in strength, dividing between them some 640 of the seats, while Labour held about 40, and the Nationalists about 80 seats. No comparison t an be made between that Parliament and the new one, for the old party divisions have been very completely wrecked. What the future of parties will be it is impossible to conjecture, although it is almost certain that the old lines of division will not reappear. The Government had a fairly definite domestic

programme —Imperial preference without food taxes, Home Rule with partition, a national housing scheme, the retention of Welsh Disestablishment, and an extension of State interest in agriculture, industry, and the public health. But the dominating issue of the election must have been what may be called the German issue. Towards the end of the election campaign the political correspondent of ''Ihe Times" declared that the old pre-war issues and catchwords, such as "Home Rule" and "Free "Trade," were falling flat. "Candi- " dates who get the applause of voters," he said, "talk rathor about hanging " the Kaiser or making Germany pay " the costs of the war, but pacifist mem"bers of tho Labour Party aro talking " about everything but war." The well-known pacifists who have been defeated make a long list. In due course some rearrangement of parties will come about, but in the meantime it is satisfactory that the Kingdom has a strong non-party Government in office to deal with the great problems ahead— the problems of the peace settlement and of the work of national reconstruction. Some of the results of the most interesting of the individual contests are mentioned in to-day's messages. The most striking of these is the defeat of Mr Asquith. The former Prime Minister has never wavered in his conception of tho war aims of Britain, which it fell to him to lay down in the early stages of the war, and which, as stated in his J notable speech at the Guildhall on November 9th, 1914, are now about to be fully and exactly realised. It is to his conspicuous antagonism to the present Coalition that he owes his defeat, which will be regretted by tho leading men of all parties, as was Mr Balfour's defeat a dozen years ago. There is no cause for regret in the defeat of Messrs Ramsay Macdonald and Philip Snowden, whose unpatriotic obstruction to Britain's war-effort their constituencies have long desired to punish. It is a pity that one cannot record the defeat of Messrs Bottomley and Billing, whose careers have demonstrated their unfitness for any public office, but freak results like this aro recorded at every olection. Tho defeat of Mr De Yalera, the Sinn Fein leader, is something of a surprise, but it has little significance, in view of the general victory of the Sinn Feiners over the Nationalist Party's candidates. Apparently tho Labour Party's success has fallen very far short of the high expectations formed when tho Reform Act was brought down, and this result may be attributed to the compromising associations of the Party during tho war. The electorate is clearly not disposed to look with favour on parties and persons even suspected of unsoundness on the main issues of the war.