BRITISH ELECTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 18812, 10 December 1924, Page 5

BRITISH ELECTIONS

REVIEW OF LABOR'S DEBACLE. THE CENTRAL CONTROVERSY* [From Oun London Cohrespootewt.] October 30. Labor’s conspicuous failure to live up to its last largesse of election pledges, and Mr MacDonald's woeful vacillation in the face of the Moscow bombshell, blowing now hot against the Bolshies, novr cold against his Foreign Office officials, have had the foreseen result. Those elections have been a Socialist Moscow', and an adequate Conservative majority for an independent Ministry under Mr Baldwin, with tho thrustful Mr Churchill m it, l« assured in the new Parliament. How long the smile will bo on tho face of the present Tory leader, and how eoon ho may share, so far as the formidable Winston is concerned, tho fate of the young lady from Riga, are interesting political conundrums. Few of Hie admirers can visualise Winston long content with the role of second fiddle to a politician of Mr Baldwin’s amiable mediocrity. EXIT MR ASQUITH.

The Conservative record of seats won bade from either Labor or Liberalism extends all over the country, and undoubtedly marks tho revulsion of ordinary-party voters from Communist intrigues and the Rod Flag. In brief, John Bull and Mra Bull have seen the red light badly. The Liberals, so far from securing their old second place, are more than ever the tortium quid, and Labor emerges the alternative party to tho_ Conservatives, whenever on another trial of political strength the pendulum swings_ once more from right to hit. Mr Asquiths defeat at Paisley is as much a sensation as Mr MacDonald’s 2,000 majority at Aberavon, whore his defeat was very confidently predicted. One healthy symptom has been the rout of tho Red candidates in almost all cases. Tom .Mann polled so few votes that his election deposit is estreated, and, though the Indian Communist won Battersea,. tho chief exponent of a class war" lost his scat at Bradford. Now for a little pence and quiet, and steady government! THE MOSCOW MANIFESTO. Instead of being hum-drum as was elf* pected, the General Election _ has stirred the nation to its very fibre. \V hat brought the nation suddenly to flaming point was the issue by the (foreign Office of a secret manifesto intercepted from Moscow. _ In this astounding official document Zinoviofl, the “ Presidium,” urges greater energy on tho part of British Communists by fomenting, by means of strikes, military and naval sedition, and the enlisting ot capable ex-otficer Socialists ns military leaders to armed revolutionary rising by British proletarians. Above all, is urged the vital importance of terrorising ‘ MacDonald ” and other Labor “bourgeoisie iu capitalistic leading strings into sticking liy the Russian Treaty, the signature of which when a breakdown threatened was forced by tho “weighty influence of proletarian Communists. A SHIFTY REJOINDER. Several useful comments may be made on this unique document. _ In the first plane, it must have been in tli© hands of our Communists, and certainly in the knowledge of the Foreign Office and the Labor Cabinet, for a considerable time. Secondly, all through it the fact obtrudes that t ile notorious _ CampbeU case was merely one detail in a. subsidised Bdehevist movement against the peace of this realm. Thirdly, the Prime ilimstere belated action in tho shape of a tamo protest and mere half-hearted euggeation Mel the Russian Treaty may be dropped lacks anything like the imperative attU ; imlo in rosnouse to such an outrage on international comity on the part of the brad of tho British Government. Obviously the Red menace in our midst has processed further and assumed more dangerous potentialities than even the stronust opponents of Communism ima- - ( rinert' Finally, the Prime Ministers lettrr, such as it is, was written only when it, became known that the Zinovielf manifesto, having come into other hands, was about to be published, THE WOBBLER. In Ms rather painful efforts to make Hie best of both worlds, Air MacDonald has succeeded only in making the worst. His extremist supporters (to whose votes am! influence, incidentally, the Labor Bicrnicr owes his position, iiecauso they it was who elected him over Mr Clynes s brad ns leader of tho party) are furious w;ih him for hesitating to denounce the Moscow manifesto as a “forger}'," and throw over his subordinates at the Foreign Office. But tlicv do not realise, as Mr MacDonald does,_ how _ hopelessly compromised his official position is. MISTER ZLVOVIETF. Zinuvicff, who so suddenly eclipsed his humble British disciple, Mr Campbell, as (he central controversial figure of the General Election, is a cosmopolitan of in,,dv aliases, like tho rest of the Moscow miscreants. His face is that of the sparkling adventurer, full of bold audacity and reckless energy, and he looks less Jewish than most of his friends. Ink® mlmrs of the same- genre, ho graduated in some Alsatian Republic of tho dreg®, am! iun-ad his personality to the front when civil carnage began to ripen. Lenin’s d.-nd m bromrht him into ampler plenitude. Germany and Italy have expelled him as & bird m’Vvil omen' but his portrait, wearing old Russian dress and an astrachan cap, honors the walls ol the faithful or the. discreet - in Moscow. TRUCULENT REDS. Though Labor’s official attitude is one of ; studious incredulity, modified occasionally by mild reprobation, there is no exaggeration about tho intimidation exercised by tho Rede in come Loudon constituencies. ..Small working class householders siniply have to display tho Socialist card iu their windows, public meetings other limn Communist street-comer ones are an impossibility, and actual physical assault is fairiv common. The menacing looks and gestures of the Red workers m come district* cannot be ignored. Any stranger who is fairiv respectable in appearance meet? with glances that are eloquent of the Moscow school. All this will, I fancy, recoil on Labor’s head. After all, moot Englishmen are averse from being buL lied, and bullying is what 5a many cases lb? Red propaganda lias come 49. WHO SAID IT? Naturally, Mr Philip Snowden’s cryptic allusion to the “very great statesman” wlio once described Mir John Simon as “ great in little thing* and littlo in great things ” is arousing much interest. Most of the ■club go.-sips decide that tho authored)ip must lie. with one or other of two noble earls—either Lord Balfour or Lord Birkenhead—both or whom are gifted with a pretty epigrammatic:)! turn on occasion, and a neat way of hit tine off uncongenial personalities. But 1 nave rather more than the proverbial shrewd idea that they arc all wrong. The eource of that stinging summary' must be, sought nearer Sir John Simon’s own party citadel. I fancy that tho author is an 'llnstrious countryman of Llewellyn, with romantic white locks, a quizzical smile, and a penchant for mountain-top perorations. The fact adds piquancy to the mot. and accounts for some of tho milk in the party cocoanut.