British Liberals

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26018, 23 January 1950, Page 6

British Liberals

Britain’s Liberal Party is small in terms of Parliamentary representa- ’ tion—its strength in the House of ‘ Commons has declined since 1924, when the Labour Party replaced it as the principal opponent of the • Conservative Party. But despite i

its disastrous showing in the 1945 General Election, when only 12 of : 307 official Liberal candidates were elected, the influence of the Liberal Party may not be negligible in the coming General Election. There is > still considerable attachment in Bri- • tain to traditional Liberal Party policies; and there is reason to be- ; lieve that a significant number of electors favours neither Conservatives nor Socialists. Public opinion polls have recently registered a popular vote for the Liberals vary- ■ ing between 10 and 14 per cent.— ■ enough to suggest that the Liberal vote may be of s'ome political importance. Some observers think i that the Conservative and Socialist parties will finish neck-and-neck; • even a small Liberal Party might . then hold the balance between them. That is the Liberals’ main i interest in the election. Less important in immediate effect but of perhaps crucial importance in the j long run is the Liberal Party’s interest in ascertaining whether there is in Britain a considerable , body of opinion which believes neither in Socialism nor Conservatism, but favours the middle course which Liberalism in theory offers. The interest of the two main parties is in the vote-splitting potentialities of the 400 candidates the Liberal Party aims to put up. The Conservatives believe that many more Liberal supporters would vote Conservative in the absence of a Lib- , eral candidate than would vote Labour. Believing that three-corn-ered fights will leave loopholes for > Labour candidates to win seats they would not win in straight contests, the Conservatives have been . anxious to get the Liberals to come to terms to fight a co-ordffiated General Election campaign. This anxiety is shared also by a section of Liberals, as should have been made clear in a cable message published on Saturday. As this message was printed, it wrongly attributed to the Liberal Party itself an appeal from the Liberal National Party (which broke away from the Liberal Party some years ago) to Liberals to co-operate openly with the Conservatives against Socialism. However, the official Liberal Party shows no signs of abating its determination to fight the General Election as an independent party, a determination that Lord Samuel, leader of the Liberal Peers in the House of Lords, confirms in a statement printed this morning. Everything suggests that the Liberal Party will enter the General Election as an important, and possibly upsetting, factor. In the circumstances, the official Liberal manifesto, which has yet to be published, will be of more than usual political interest, because the party must recognise that even if it puts up 400 candidates, a third of the constituencies will still not be covered. It is characteristic of the uncertain leadership, divided opinions, and feuds which have contributed so much to the decline of Liberalism in Britain that there are two schools of thought in the official Liberal Party about the destination : of Liberal votes in electorates where 1 there is no Liberal candidate. The i Liberal newspaper, the “ Manches- i “ ter Guardian ”, noted recently that i of the two “ leading ladies ” of the * Liberal Party, “ Lady Violet Bon- i “ ham Carter has seemed to hint j “ that this vote should be given to i “the Tory; Lady Megan Lloyd: “ George that it should be given to i “ Labour ”. The manifesto can 1 scarcely avoid this point; and what- • ever lead the party gives to its sup- i porters may well have important consequences—and not only in the ‘ electorates where there are no Lib- ’ eral candidates. When it comes to | voting in. a General Election of such : critical importance, many electors of Liberal inclinations may not be willing to waste their votes on a i hopeless, if not a useless, cause. 1