THE H.B. TRIBINE THURSDAY. DECEMBER 20, 1923. MANOEUVRING FOR OFFICE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 313, 20 December 1923, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBINE THURSDAY. DECEMBER 20, 1923. MANOEUVRING FOR OFFICE.

The developments of the political situation in the Old Country created by the recent election as they are being revealed by the cables from day to day are quite sufficiently interesting in themselves when regarded merely as indicative of strange possibilities when Parliament meets three or four weeks hence. They are, however, of still deeper interest when studied in their relation to the very fair chance that, unless the electors realise the danger in time, our own next general election, whenever it may come, will place us in much the same position. The sooner this is realised and minds made up definitely either to take the risks involved or to devise means for avoiding them the better for the country. Even the most casual readers must see the effect that has been brought about as the result of an election that has given no one of the three political parties an absolute majority in the House of Commons, and has thus opened the gate for intrigue and finessing that, obviously, is infinitely more vicious when exercised after than when practised before an election. For the moment the Labour Party, under Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, are showing good judgment in allowing Mr. Asquith and his friends to do most of the talking. They are fully conscious of the fact that, whatever else may happen short of an immediate dissolution and a fresh election, they are assured of the first reversion to the Treasury benches should Mr Baldwin and his Conservative following be pushed out. It is therefore manifestly good party tactics to leave the floor to the Liberals, thus encouraging them to an irrevocable declaration of a stand of absolute independence that will prevent them hereafter from keeping Labour oyt of its prospective inheritance by keeping the “Tory” life tenant alive.

How far the Liberals are allowing themselves to be made the catspaw of Labour may be judged from the brief summaries that are coming through of Mr. Asquith’s speeches and of press comments upon them. In order to assure some more remote chance for himself to fall heir to the Prime Ministership and his party to such power as can come to a relatively small minority in office, Mr. Asquith, skilled and hardened lawyer that he is, has armed himself with the barrister’s traditional weapon of precent and is championing the right of Mr MacDonald to be "sent for” by the King. It does not matter that through all its long history the British Parliament provides no precedent for adoption at the present juncture, simply because the

juncture is itself wholly unprecedented. Mr. Asquith, however, may make out some plausible case for the application of precedents that are essentially inapplicable and thus gain his point, to the great advantage of Labour.,ln fact, it is not at all like.ly that Mr. Baldwin or any ot his side will do more than insist, as he has quite rightly done, upon a majority of the House assuming the responsibility of demanding the resignation of his Government. In this he will have created a new precedent that rational men cannot but approve. Mr. Asquith, however, goes on to intimate—and Mr. Lloyd George concurs—that the Liberal intention is to assist Labour in ousting the Conservatives so’that Labour may assume the reins. But this is only one step in the Liberal tactics, which propose that, with the assistance of the party they have turned ■out, they will turn out Labour also. Then, still with the aid of complaisant Conservatives, the Liberals are not only to take, but to maintain, office. This, at any rate, is the construction put upon his words for us by presumably competent English journalistic interpreters. It is surely a queer sort of political pride that is content to boast that a party which is itself in a hopeless minority “really, if it understands its business, controls the situation.” If this is not a direct negation of democratic rule as so vehemently supported by Liberalism throughout the Empire, it is hard to say what may b<». It may not be forgotten that more than one attempt was made ‘during our own last session of Parliament to pursue a course much the same as that Mr. Asquith has now laid out, only here the Liberals took priority over Labour.