The Evening Post WELLINGTON, FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1945. COALITIONS: THEN AND NOW

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 122, 25 May 1945, Page 4

The Evening Post WELLINGTON, FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1945.

COALITIONS: THEN AND NOW

In one respect, at any rate, historyis not'repeating itself. After Germany's defeat in 1918, the Coalition Government fought a General Election as a Coalition; but Germany's defeat in 1945 is to be quickly followed by a General Election in which the parties forming the Second World War Coalition will fight as separate parties. That means that there can be no revival of the Second World War Coalition except by the will of the parties—particularly Conservative and Labour—after a party-political consultation of the electorate. The presiding genius in British politics at the end of the First World War was Mr. Lloyd George, recently deceased; and his career has been written on by Mr. Churchill, who is the presiding genius of British politics at this very moment. Churchill's brilliant pen has shown how the First World War Coalition, .preserved in 1918-19 by its architects, gradually disintegrated from within and died after years of travail. Probably Churchill did not then glimpse that, a quarter of a century later, his own position would become comparable with — though not parallel with—Lloyd George's; but the degree of similarity must frequently be in his mind today. In his initial post-war decision he has not followed in Lloyd George's footsteps; but although he has agreed to ending the present Coalition prior to the General Election, he has left the door open to the making of a Coalition should the newly-elected House of Commons . prove to be favourable thereto. Commenting in his history on Lloyd George's position in 1918, Churchill emphasises a feature not present in his own position today. In Lloyd George's Coalition- the Conservatives "had obtained an obvious and decisive atecendancy," but as Lloyd George was not a Conservative but a Liberal at enmity with many Liberals, "Lloyd George's position, at the height of his fame, became one .of singular insecurity." The Conservatives were loyal to him, "but entirely separate from him." By contrast, Churchill today is not only a Conservative but is the Leader of the Conservative Party, and his Liberal days are not remembered by the present generation. Churchill the historian records that the General Election after . the First World War gave "an overwhelming vote of confidence in Mr. Lloyd George," who "found himself Prime Minister with a five years' constitutional tenure before him, at the head of a majority elected mainly, upon his personal prestige and popularity,, comprising nearly five-sixths of the whole House of Commons." But his old Liberal Party had fallen badly, and therefore he was "sustained only by his transient personal prestige. S.o long as this lasted, his position and authority were unchallengeable, but how long would it last?" Some part of the answer to that question is found in Churchill's comment, in 1922, that Lloyd George, "in the fierce duress of the war and its consequences had run through all the parties and many of the friendships. . . . He was still 'the pilot who weathered the storm,' still the great Lloyd George. . . . But he was exhausted by all he had gone through." He "had been flouted and defied by the officials of the Conservative organisation"—a thing not regarded today as possible in the present case of Churchill—and "the forces that sustained the Coalition, [in 1922] were swiftly decomposing." Their final dissolution was at hand. After the First World War Lloyd George ruled a House of Commons that had been revitalised to the extent that it could be revitalised by a General Election fought by the Coalition as a Coalition. Today the House of Commons is to be revitalised by a partypolitical General Election, out of which a Coalition may or may not emerge. As to any charge that this General Election is a rushed one, it can. be pointed out that its shadow has long been cast across the face of Britain. As long ago as last November "The Spectator" felt justified in placing over an article on the subject the headline "Odour of Dissolution," and it then i wrote that the coming General Election was "without precedent.1. . . The Labour and Liberal Parties will not be parties that have been in Opposition, attacking the record of a Government that has been in [sole] power. . . . The Labour and Liberal Parties have shared in that Government"; and they carry the responsibilities inherent in a continuing war—the war against Japan. Candidates at such a General Election should avoid personalities; "the country is fn no mood for a dogfight."