LONDON TOPICS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3996, 21 April 1931, Page 7

LONDON TOPICS

February 2G. Critics of what is conveniently called the flapper vote ” are ominously justified by recent by-elections. In the Fast Islington contest less than 50 per cent, and in Fareham only just a bare 50 per cent, of the registered voters took the trouble to poll. This in spite of the gravest economic crisis this country ever faced, and after the intensest electoral campaigning by all parties. It follows that cither the newly-enfranchised young people take no interest whatever in parliamentary government or the general voters are completely disgruntled by the tactical manoeuvres of the party politicians. The tone ot everyday comment rather suggests the latter explanation for such remarkable public apathy. The country is waiting for “ one clear call ’* that carries some conviction of vital reality. DAVID AND PHIL. GOLIATH. Obviously Mr Snowden and Mr Lloyd George are now at daggers drawn. It is a piquant antagonism for two intimate friends who are close neighbours. Mr Lloyd George sees in Mr Snowden the stumbling block to his ambitious schemes of curing unemployment by borrowing more millions, and Mr Snowden realises that Mr Llovd George is egging on the malcontents'of the Socialist Party, who refuse to see any need for curtailing social luxury services in time of national bankruptcy. Yet it was Mr Snowden who made overtures for Air Lloyd George’s support for the Labour minority Ministry. At the present moment some Liberals might welcome Mr Snowden as leader of their party, and most Socialists of the Left Wing would jump at Air Lloyd George as their Chancellor of the Exchequer. It will be a dramatic duel, and Air Lloyd George is confident he holds the winning hand.

Then* is a good deal of interested speculation, not only in political but in commercial circles, about Mr Snowden’s reply to one point raised by the Chamber of Commerce deputation. Sir Walter Ramp bluntly stressed the necessity of a tax for revenue purposes on imported foreign manufactures. He urged that, allowing for such imports as are already taxed, this would either yield, at 10 per cent, ad valorem, £25, 000,000, or. in so far as it fell short of that amount, relieve the unemployment dole by giving work to our people. Mr Snowden’s reply was significant. He smilingly observed that he must not anticipate his Budget proposals. This statement coincides with renewed lobby rumours of a strong move in the Labour Cabinet in favour of an import tax “ for revenue only.” “ THE FROZEN MITT.”

The Conservative and Liberal camps have by no means a monopoly of fratricidal troubles. Mr Baldwin may have his newspaper peers and Mr * Lloyd George his Simons and his Runcimans, but the Socialists are equally unkind to each other. There is even gossip now about a possible severance between the Mosley group and orthodox Labour. Mr J. H. Thomas’s recent scathing attack on Sir Oswald Mosley has given deep offence. Lady Cynthia is furious about it. For her, either in the lobby or the House of Commons, Mr Thomas appears to have ceased to have corporeal existence. She looks through him at the oak panelling. But somehow shrewd observers never regarded the queer union between the Mosleys and trade unionism as more than a political marriage of convenience.