Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1927. THE POLITICAL PENDULUM

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 128, 3 June 1927, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1927. THE POLITICAL PENDULUM

The result of the by-election for the Bosworth division of Leicestershire is a surprise in several ways, and for the Government a very uq. pleasant surprise. At the General Section the voting was very clcise. With 10,114 votes the Government candidate had a lead of 358 over the Labourite and 971 over the Liberal. Under any rational system of .'re-j presentation he would not have won , the seat with nearly 9000 more votes! against him than in his favour. At i the by-election another triangular! contest gave General Spears the' chance- of repeating his predecessor's ! success with a minority vote, buA the minority was too tiny. The Conservative vote fell from 10,114 to 7685' —a drop of 2429. The votes of the other "two'parties increased by closely similar amounts, the gain of the Labour Party being 2567 and that of. the Liberals 2225. The Liberal candidate headed the po.ll with 11,981-votes and had a majority of 4296 over the Conservative.. The Labour man, who was a-good second, had a majority of more than 4000 over the Conservative.. The combined Liberal-Labour majority over the Conservative, which was 8785 at the General Election, had , increased to j 16,006. The significance of this huge turnover is increased by the fact that the by-election rule of slacker interest and smaller polling did not I apply to this case. , Two thousand three hundred and sixty-three more of the Bosworth electors voted in .1927 than in 1924, and if the whole of this surplus is credited to the two Opposition candidates the defection of 2429 electors who voted for the Government in 1924 must still be presumed to account for the .Opposition gain of 4792. 'The Bosworth figures are therefore of a more disturbing significance than those of an ordinary by-elec-tion, in which a: normal accompaniment of slackened interest is a tendency to go'against the Government, especially, if it has a; large majority in the House. One might have expected some reaction against this tendency in view of the better prospects for the Government's policy in China and the recent disclosures of the treachery and the implacable hostility of the Bolshevik Power for which the admiration of a powerful section of the Labour Party appears to be steadily growing. The fact that the Government lost votes at Bosworth to Labour as well as to the Liberals seems to strengthen the argument of "Curio" in his article on "The Prospects of Parties" in the April number of "The Fortnightly Review." What, ho asks, is tho position of tho Government? It is still getting tho ordinary solid Conservative vote which supported Bonar Law and his policy of "tranquillity," which gave him a majority of eighty in Oio Houso of Commons. There is no sign yet of a great roverso such ns distinguished 190 G. All that has been lost is tho Zinovieff voter. Tho Conservative Party managers ought to go away quietly;'for a fortnight and think very hard in their sylvan isolation of how they are going to get that votor when' the day arrives. That sort of elector never comes out twice for the same reasons. That is whero Lord Birkonhead, Mr. Churchill, and Sir W. Joyu-son-Hicks aro wrong in going on playing tho stale "Rod Russia" card. This course only pleases tho Dio-kards, who aro going to vote for you anyhow. At this rate any anti-Soviet feeling will have burnt itself right out long beforo 1928. ■' ■ , ■ To the Liberal Party the verdict of the Bosworth electors will of course appear to be of profound importance. The normal fate of a Liberal candidate during the first two years after the last, General Election was to be at the bottom of the poll, and he was lucky if he did not forfeit his deposit. But now for the third time within three months a Liberal candidate has topped the poll. In Leith the party merely retained the seat which they had won at the General Election, but in Southwark the triangular contest arising from Dr. Haden Guest's quarrel with the Labour Party and subsequent candidature as an Independent enabled . the Liberals to win the seat from Labour. In Bosworth they have now scored at the expense of the Government. It is true that in all these contests they only won by a minority vote, but it is certain that no change in the method of representation will be made by the present Parliament, and that three-party contests will give the Liberal candidates the same chances at the next General Election which have recently worked to their advantage. It may also be inferred from the almost comical elation with which the Liberals were inspired by their two previous victories that their hopes will be much higher now. Hope, whether well grounded or not, is an invaluable political asset, and along with his cash-box and his eloquence the capacity for hoping and for inspiring hope is one of the good things that their new leader has brought them. It is strange to read immediately after the Bosworth by-election the conclusion which the "Fortnightly's" contributor draws from the most remarkable of its predecessors. T . December he had suggested some kind of combination between Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald and' Mr. Lloyd George as the most hopeful alternative to a Conservative Government, but in .April he admits that the beautiful vision of a third party of moderates has faded, and that men are i inclining more and more to regard

Xabour and Toryism as the" only alternatives.

The most potent influences, writes Curio," in bringing about this new irame of mind have been the by-elec-tions at Hull and Smethwick. I a the nrst place it was proved that a popular local member like Commander Kenworthy could walk a large majority of Ins Liberal following over into the Labour camp and at the same time receive the Socialist vote entire. The Smethwick election showed that Liberalism is practically defunct in the Midlands. But if the Liberals cannot do better than this at by-elections what becomes of the idea attributed both by friends ant. enemies to Mr. Lloyd George and suggested by his own speeches—of holding a controlling power over the next Socialist Ministry? Where is he eoine to get the. eighty seats which would make ham a new Parnell? . . . The Liberal voter will not rally to a party which gives him no hope. Mr. Lloyd treorge's triumph over the "old man" has come too late. He will not be saved by Sir Herbert Samuel and his 500 candidates. He is in the position of a Hercules who strangles Death only to find _ that Aleestis- is beyond resuscitation. But the Liberal Hercules will not admit that his Aleestis is dead, and from Bosworth he will bring a new smelling-bottle to give her another chance.