Evening Post. THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1931, "HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 12

Evening Post. THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1931, "HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL"

Addressing the Liberal and Radical Candidates Association on the sth December, Mr. Lloyd George professed to find much comfort in the last two by-elections. Though Labour was declining rapidly in popular favour—"very rapidly, more rapidly than any Government I have ever seen"—there was no clear evidence of a reaction in favour of a Baldwin Government. There is no great growth in the Conservative vote,, he said, and we have had two very encouraging by-elections. At Shipley the Liberal vote went up by 1000, and in Whitechapcl by 3000. Even in Renfrew the Tory poll did not go up very much. Xo, give us time, and you will find there will be a considerable growth in the confidence placed in Liberalism. Hope is^one of the first duties of a party leader, and in that Mr. Lloyd George has always been strong, but of confidence the less he says the belter. That is a thing which with all his brilliant gifts he is unable to inspire. If he cannot command the confidence of his own,small party, what possible chance is there that he or the party under his guidance can ever recover the confidence of the nation? The country, said Mr. Lloyd George, is beginning to realise for the first time what our tactics—forgive the word—really meant; what we were driving at. The country has certainly been a good deal puzzled by the tactics of this acrobatic leader, and has so disliked them that he did well to apologise for .his use of the word, nor to the impartial eye is there any evidence that the dislike is being mitigated by a clearer knowledge. When, therefore, Mr. Lloyd George describes the British people as "the kind of electorate which will swing very heavily when it begins," a sufficient answer is that it has *ot yet begun. When he adds: We had 25 per cent, of it, very 'nearly, last time. Don't you be- surprised if that 25 per cent, will increase very considerably. He is entitled to congratulation on the modesty of his expectations and to condolence on the plain impossibility of their fulfilment. The first opportunity of testing the accuracy, of Mr. Lloyd George's diagnosis was presented on the 16th January, when the Bristol East electors reduced the Labour vote by nearly 5000 and the Liberal vote by more than 8000 — just twice the total of the Liberal gains in the two constituencies on which he had built his hopes! Some 8000 Bristol electors who had voted Liberal, in 1929 ,in order to avoid splitting the anti-Labour forces showed their appreciation of recent Liberal "tactics" by supporting the Conservative candidate and leaving the Liberal at the bottom of the poll with 4010 votes. "The warm and whole-hearted approval"of Sir John Simon's recent attitude and speeches," which was expressed by the British Liberal Club on the eve of the poll, indicates that even among the 4000 to whom the 12;500 supporters of the Liberal candidate at the General Election had been reduced there must have been a considerable number who were strongly opposed to Mr. Lloyd George's methods. With him (Sir John Simon), said the Liberal Club's resolution, they agree that the present is tho worst and most incompetent Government the country has ever had. With him they agree when ho says, "Wo shall, I believe, best servo our country if wo do not spend too much of our time in tactical calculations, but take a bold stand, come what may, for the things in which we believe." Another test of Mr. Lloyd George's hopes was supplied on Saturday by the result of the Pontypridd election. In Gladstone's time "gallant little Wales" could always (supply Liberalism with a safe refuge, even in its darkest hours, and in Mr. Lloyd George's early days the tradition was well maintained. But recently the drift from Liberalism to Labour has been so strong in Wales that it now returns 25 Labourites and only 10 Liberals, of whom the Lloyd Georges represent just 30 per cent. The loyalty of Wales to Labour and its increasing dislike of Liberalism are now exhibited in a striking way. While the other constituencies have been recording a Labour slump with monotonous regularity Pontypridd has left the Labour vote practically undiminished, and On a proportionate basis has actually increased it. At the same time, the Conservatives have gained 1500, and the Liberals have lost nearly 6000—a drop of more than 40 per cent. Give us time, said Mr. Lloyd George in December, and you will find there will be a considerable growth in the confidence placed in Liberalism. Mj.,Xlqffl.,<aeot > gpb.as -beea^glye^

three months for the fuvlher trial he desired. During that time he has been as active as ever Avith his public bluff and his private wire-pulling, and we are surely entitled to assume that all the varied resources of the tactical box of tricks have now been fully exploited. Yet the last state of his party is decidedly worse than the first. It slumped more than 40 per cent, in Pontypridd and more than 65 per cent, in Bristol East. Must it reach the 100 per cent, before he is convinced? The hope which is said to "spring eternal in the human breast" is evidently not going to desert Mr. Lloyd George's while there is a spark of political life left. The same clay which told us of his latest reverse showed also' that he was as active as ever. He was still negotiating for a Labour-Liberal agreement, and both he and Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald were said to be convinced that an understanding is possible by which Labour will maintain offico for another eighteen months. . . . It is understood that Mr. Lloyd George is specially concerned in securing an agreement by which tho Socialists will not attack the Liberals in certain constituencies. This anxiety on the Liberal leader's part is easily understood, but in view of the decline in his party's fortune it is hard to see that either this arrangement or the alternative vote can do much to retrieve them, or that the chance of getting the Liberal goodwill will be worth any considerable sacrifice on the part of Labour. Nor does the prolongation for another eighteen months of the life of a Government of which Mr. Lloyd George himself has spoken just as contemptuously as Sir John Simon- seem to be an inspiring ideal for a selfrespecting party. But we have since been told that the Liberal "shadow Cabinet" has decided against a pact, and to-day the party itself is reported to have affirmed its independence by 37 votes to 17. On which side Mr. Lloyd George voted we are not told, and the address which he is making to the Liberal and Radical Candidates' Association to-day is not likely to satisfy curiosity on the point. All that may be safely predicted of it is that it will congratulate the party on its greatly improved prospects. A stubborn hoper and a brilliant talker, Mr. Lloyd George would be a magnificent leader if the rest of him was to match.