THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1924. WILL LABOUR HELP?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 280, 6 November 1924, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1924. WILL LABOUR HELP?

A good dea] has been said and written with regard to the possibility of-the heavy parliamentary majority conferred on the Conservative Party at last week’s British election resulting the next Government’s sense of responsibility being weakened. It will not be for want of warnings 'on this score that Mr. Baldwin and his chosen colleagues, whoever they may ultimately turn out to be, will prove in any way a “reactionary” Administration. On all hands, and by men and journals of all political colours, their attention has been drawn to the fact that, though they have secured a strong majority in the way of membership in the House, they have failed to secure even a bare majority of the people’s votes. This wag probably at once realised by the Conservative leader and his friends without any prompting, and it is a notable thing that one of the most prominent of the so-called “Die-hards,” Lord Birkenhead, has twice taken occasion to emphasise this phase of the election. Apart altogether from these friendly and, indeed, sometimes unfriendly cautions, there does not spem to be any real ground for fear that any Government of which Mr. Stanley Baldwin will continue the leadership will have and keep anything but the interests of. the community at large in view, and that, too, with full and practical sympathy for the class which always suffers most from trade depression. It was, in truth, because he had those interests at heart that he was led to sacrifice the assured position in Parliament that he previously held in order to test the country’s feeling on fiscal measures that he sincerely believed would work for industrial betterment. The majority of the electors gave voice decisively against his proposals, and he went out with never a whimper, only to make room for another Government whose efforts at amelioration for the masses, spread over eight or nine months brought very little appreciable result. Nor can it for a moment be said that any of the practicable proposals to that end brought forward by Mr. MacDonald’s Government met with anything but cordial support from the Conservative Opposition. Its downfall came not at the hands of the Conservatives alone, but at those of the Liberals also, and thus at the hands of the representatives of an overwhelming majority of the electors of Decern’ ber, 1923, and then only on a question of foreign policy on which both these parties agreed that the interests of Great Britain and its people were being sacrificed to no good end. It may, indeed, be very much mor© pertinent to consider whether Mr. Baldwin will be able to rely upon any like hearty co-operation from the Labour Party in the sincere endeavour we may be quite sure he will make towards restoring British industries and so providing work for the now workless. If the spirit in which Labour would seem to have taken its defeat at the polls is to be given expression in Parliament when it meets, then there would seem to be small chance of any such hearty working together to a common end. Prom mor© than one quarter we have had it said that Labour’s efforts at securing domination—for that is what is sought—must now be shifted from the political to the industrial arena. This, of course, can be interpreted in no other way than as a recourse to the strike threat—if nothing worse. If this course is pursued, then it cannot but follow that all attempts at bringing about an industrial revival must fail. These threats meet, no doubt, with anything but approval from Mr. MacDonald and his more responsible colleagues, but it remains to be seen how far he and they will go in the way of endeavouring to restrain the extremists among their following. On this the success

of the new Government and the welfare of the people will greatly depend. Then, too, while Mr. Baldwin has given promise to follow no general protectionist policy, he has pretty clearly intimated his intention of at least restoring the safeguards to particular industries that existed when the Labour Government took office. Will Mr. MacDonald and his friends be big enough to recognise and admit the failure of their own rabidly free-trade policy, and yield him . support in this movement? Possibly a perusal of the report as to how things are going in “protectionist” France that is summarised below may help them, if ever so reluctantly, to concur in some measure of at least temporary protection for British industries now on the verge of complete collapse and extinction.