Evening Post. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1931. THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 95, 19 October 1931, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1931. THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN

At the first glance the analytical list of the candidates who were nominated on Friday for the British General Election suggests that the confusion with which the three-party system has cursed the poKtics of Great Britain is being worse confounded, and that another large s*nde has been taken towards the group system of Continental politics. A comparison with the nominations at the elections of 1929 shows that the number of Communist candidates is unchanged—though how that party [can afford to enrich the revenue once jmore with 25 deposits of £150 each is a mystery unless it is.financed from [Moscow—and" that the number of [unclassified "others" has only changed from 32 to 26. But after excluding these two negligible groups the remaining 1672 candidates in 1929 were divided between three parties, whereas the present remainder of 1235 is scattered among seven. More than a thousand of this number is, however, almost equally divided between the Conservatives and the Labourites with 5,17 and 514 respectively. In 1929 their respective numbers were 590 and 570, but the striking change is in the Liberal total, which has fallen nominally from 512 to 123, but really much lower. For, though Sir John Simon's Liberal group of 40 is excluded from this total because it will support the Government, a large majority of the remaining 123 can apparently be relied on to vote in the same way on the main issues.

The principal assets of the Liberals who put 512 candidates into the field in 1929 and elected 58 of them were the personality of Mr. Lloyd George, his personally controlled political fund, and Free Trade. To-day their faith in Mr. Lloyd George has gone, the fund has never recovered from that exhausting and disastrous effort, and the faith in Free Trade, which had previously been severely shaken, has now hup honourably postponed by most of'-<faem' to the financial necessities of Ac nation. The complete elimination of the Liberal Party would be a solid 'set-off.'to the blow that hit the nation so hard in August, and would greatly improve the .chances of a permanent cure. For immediate purposes, at any rate, the complete loyalty of the 40 Simon Liberals and of a large majority of the other Liberals to the National Government is more than enough to make good the decrease of 73 in the number of Conservative candidates; and the 21 National Labour candidates, who appear for the first time, are also pledged to its support. On the other hand, though the 23 "New Party" candidates, who are presumably the followers of Sir Oswald Mosley, may embarrass the Labour Party by the splitting of votes, they will probably join with that party in opposition to the Government on most issues, with the possible exception of the tariff. If these 23 be added to the 514 orthodox Labourites the Opposition total of 537 is not far behind the number of candidates put up "by Labour in 1929.

But the number of candidates is, after all, the measure of a party's hopes rather than of its strength, and especially,in the case of the Labour Party the change, if any, in <the class of candidates would be more significant. At present, however, no information on the point is available, but an estimate which is cabled to-day of the classes of voters whose support Labour has lost since the last General Election has an indirect bearing upon it. It may be that this estimate is unduly coloured by the conviction that "the bulk of the nation is determined that there shall be no more Labour rule," but, subject to some discount on that score, it may probably be accepted as a fairly correct appraisement of tendencies. According to this diagnosis of the position which has been jnade for the Australian Press,

most of the intelligentsia which flocked to Labour in 1928-29 are lost to the cause. The educated girl workers are lost; the middle-class people who, for various reasons, voted Labour in 1929, are loat; the bulk of the small shopkeeping class,- formerly largely Liberal, are lost, as also are even some of the older trade unionists. Indeed, the Labour force, bereft of its powerful auxiliaries, is now composed almost wholly of the general body of trade unionists and all the dole drawers.

The most olbvious correction to be made in this estimate relates to the last point. Labour can doubtless rely upon the support of "all the doledrawers"—a support which, if it was fairly solid before, must have been made much more enthusiastic oince the National Government undertook the responsibility for that 10 per cent, cut in the dole which the Labour Government would probably have made it if had been left to itself, but which the fierce opposition of the Trade Unions deterred it from making. But though most of the uproar excited by the courageous economies of the National Government thus centred on the dole, this cut accounted for less than half of the £70,000,000 to which the whole of these economies amounted, and those who thought the Conservative and Liberal leaders guilty of a grave tactical error in helping to relieve the Labour Government of the invidious task of economising pointed to the large army of other malcontents whom the 10 per cent, culs would align with the draAvers of the dole. It is impossible to suppose that this gen-

eral discontent is not operating strongly against the Government, but the absence of any reference to it in the estimate under review seems to indicate at least that it is much less serious than was expected a few weeks

ago. But in other respects, and especially in its reference to the change that has come over the attitude of the intelligentsia since the last General Election, the diagnosis under review may probably be accepted as substantially accurate. The number of people who used to vote for Prohibition in this country while denying that they were Prohibitionists was not more remarkable than the number of non-Socialists who in 1929 vb-ted for the British Labour Party in spite of its Socialism. Many of them had legitimate grievances against the Baldwin Government. Others added to this a vague sympathy with some of the ideals of the Labour Party. And they were all able to ease their consciences with the comfortable reflection that a Socialist Government, with the brake on, could not do much harm and might even do some good. With Mr. Lloyd George as brakesman this beautiful theory has met with the fate it deserved, and we can well believe that the Labour Party, after shedding the most broad-minded of its leaders, has lost this academic and irresponsible support which was strong enough to give it a trial in 1929. And though the contest may thus.have become much more like a class struggle than it was before, the non-fulfilment of Mr. Graham's prophecy of "a most savage election" is something to be thankful for.