Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 1931. LABOUR IN THE BALANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 21, 26 January 1931, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 1931. LABOUR IN THE BALANCE

—-—♦ i In the forecasts of the session of the British Parliament which were cabled a week ago, the chief points were the lack of anything during the recess to strengthen the position of the Government except the Indian Conference, the alarm with which the Liberals regarded some of the provisions of the Trades Disputes Bill, and the unwillingness both of the Opposition parties and of the "Mosleyile"' insurgents to precipitate the defeat of the Government. A day or two later the Government had greatly increased its prestige ( by the successful conclusion of the Indian Conference, but immediately afterwards it was defeated in Committee on its Education Bill, and only the abstinence of most of the Liberals enabled it to carry the amended Bill by 256 voles to 238. The effect of this narrow escape was to enable the Government to deal-with a still more perilous issug. The Trade Disputes Act of 1927 was in its principal features the inevitable outcome-of'the attack which Labour had made upon the foundations ..of democratic ' government by the general strike in the previous year, but before it had reached the Statute Book Mr. Mac Donald had committed his party in the most uncompromising terms to its' repeal. "We are faced, ho wrote to~the AberavoTi Labour Party on the 23rd April, 1927, with one of tne worst Bills that have, ever been introduced into the House of Commons. It breathes hate and suspicion in every clause. .. As soon as the country entrusts us with power'we, shall remove this, disgraceful smirch from the Statute Book. Mr. Mac Donald, , who had failed to restrain the disastrous blunder of his parly in 1926, was the reverse of a restraining influence in 1927. In its operation he has doubtless found the Trade Disputes Art to be not nearly such an unmitigated abomination as he then regarded it, and since the General Election put him into office again it is probable that nobody has regretted more deeply than he that it was not one of the things he could leave alone. But the pledges of Mr. Mac Donald himself, his colleagues and his party, are too definite and too emphatic, the demands of the Trade Unions have been too insistent, and the suspicions bf his backsliding are too widespread to permit of his declining the responsibility or postponing it any longer. And, as they are apt to do, his sins are .finding him out at the most inconvenient possible moment. No British Government has had a more intolerable complication of difficulties to contend with, and some of them are of a kind with which no Government would have grappled successfully. But there have been others of the Government's own making, and it is one of these that, at a time when the Prime Minister has just earned the gratitude of the nation by his sue-, cessful conduct of the Indian Conference, and Avhen opponents and insurgents alike would in their own interests rather not turn him out, may compel them to do so. The key of the position is still held by the Liberals, who put the Labour Party into power some eighteen months ago, and have since alternated their criticisms and their favours with an embarrassing and not altogether designed fashion. Mr.. I46yd .George has from time to time attacked the Government with great power, but even when he was obviously in the right he has usually shrunk from carrying his opposition as far as the division lobby, and when he did not shrink his followers have deserted him in sufficient numbers to save the Government. Distrust of their own leader is stronger with some Liberals than their fear of the Government's policy, but probably the whole of the party has shared his fear of a General Election. The article which a Liberal back-bencher was reported on Saturday to have contributed to the "Morning Post" states one of the reasons with perfect candour. Every day, he says, we are asked, "AVhy don't you turn out the Government?" There is not a single Liberal who would not like to do so, but first they want to get a little money into the party chest. Most Liberals fear that an election will mean their defeat, •'■••..■■ Before the General Election one of the causes both of Mr.. Lloyd George's power over a majority of his party and of the distrust of a small minority was the, emptiness of the party's chest and his personal control of a fund accumulated while he', was- at the head of the Coalition Government, and reputed to exceed a million. But the lavish expendi- ! ture of the Liberals during the elec--1 tion campaign—an expenditure which in its disproportion to the I meagreness of results achieved was 1 probably unprecedented—was known ;to have made serious inroads upon ! this fund; and the recent indications that there is very little left are confirmed by the "Morning Post's" con> tributor. But if the Liberals av.e_ to wait until,their war cheat is as full as it was two years,ago they will have to wait a very long time. The poor showing that they have made at the by-elections shows that under present conditions the outlook of the party is. hopeless. But the hope of electoral reform has probably supplied the Liberals with an even stronger inducement for temporising than the shortage of funds. Their crushing defeat at ihe General Election was largely due to

the defects of the electoral system. Of less than 23,000,000 votes polled ihe Liberals got nearly a quarter (5.300,000), but they were given less than a tenth of the seats. A proportional system would have increased their total from 58 to 141, and have reduced Labour's total from 289 to 224. As is usual with those who : have profited by these absurdities, Mr. Mac Donald declared immediately after the election that electoral reform had "no interest for the Labour Party; but the pressure from the Liberals and dependence upon their support has compelled his Government to take an interest in the subject. Proportional representation being out of the question, the transferable vote for which the Bill -now before the House provides is all that the Liberals expected, and the cruellest part of the back-bencher's article is the assumption that, just as the prize appeared to be within their grasp, it will be snatched away.

The writer thinks it obvious that the Government is going to fall before passing the Electoral Reform Bill. The question which Liberal Commoners ar&, discussing is whether or not it would be better to risk their own fate and at least gain some credit for ridding the country of the present Government.

It is not surprising that ihc threatened fall of the Government before it can realise the hopes of the Liberals has induced Mr. Lloyd George to seek an interview with Mr. MacDonald. Some mutual incompatibility seems as a rule to keep the leaders apart, and it is usually with Mr. Snowden that Mr. Lloyd George carries on his negotiations. A week ago his "long and friendly talk" with Mr. Snowden had failed—so Mr. Lloyd George told us—to convince the. Government of "the magnitude of the unemployment emergency." Will Mr. < Lloyd George have any better 'luck with the Prime Minister now? Whatever may be -the result, there should be some thrills in the House this week.