L.C.C. AND LABOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 60, 12 March 1934, Page 6

L.C.C. AND LABOUR

. While democracy and the voting system are open to many criticisms— of which the apathy of tlie electors is one—it has to be conceded that the pendulum movement in elections has its adv.antages. In a two-party contest, as the electorate swings from Right to Left and from Left to Right, it opens safety valves, for neither side is deprived of opportunity in office, to make good its promises in opposition. Each-in turn feels responsibility; and now responsibility knocks^ at the door of the London Labour Party, which is credited with an absolute'majority in the London County Council. Labour-in-office means'either a rebuke to Labour extremism, or, the indulgence of extremism and payment of the inevitable price—defeat at the next election. So much has been proved in the history, even the recent history, of Australia. In London the electorate is much larger, but the sphere 'of government is much narrower. The Labour majority in the London County Council has a task mainly administrative. When it says housing and slum clear-, ance, it says only what everybody says. iThe test of its individuality will li& in its administration,- and when Mr. Morrison speaks of "integrity" of administration it may be taken that he means compliance with economic tests, not merely a housing i programme carried out at any old cost. When a party achieves a placQ in a two-party disposition, responsii bility in due course knocks at its , door. This knowledge has a steady- ; ing effect, for even an apathetic electorate wakes up when things go wrong.