WOMEN’S VOTE GREAT UNKNOWN QUANTITY IN FORTHCOMING CLASH

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6901, 6 May 1929, Page 7

WOMEN’S VOTE GREAT UNKNOWN QUANTITY IN FORTHCOMING CLASH

Party Forces Arrayed

LABOUR PUTS RECORD NUMBER IN THE FIELD

HALF NATION FRANCHISED. United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph —Copyright. Received Sunday, 7 p.m. LONDON, May 4. The state of the parties after the general election of 1024 was:—

Nomination day is May 20 polling day May 30. While, the election campaign has not yeti fully developed, there is sufficient evidenco to show it will be one of the fiercest, most complicated and most puzzling in British political history. All parties are at present manoeuvring for position. The issue is not yet clearly defined, but the platform and press campaigns alike are already being conducted in the strongest language. The first official lists of candidates arc not expected before next week-end: The Labour Party has already endorsed 555 candidates and in all probability will endorse a further 20. This is easily a Labour record.

There are at present 64 women candidates, compared with 41 at the last election. These are divided as follows —Conservatives, 8; Liberals, 25; Labour, 28; Communists, 2; Independent, 1.

Even this increased total is small, in view of the fact that women voters are predominant in the electorate, which now includes half the nation, compared with less than a century ago, when scarcely one-fiftieth part of the nation voted. Of these women voters, there are many thousands of young women of Britain’s middle-class and better-class homes who live in an atmosphere quite remote from Socialism and there is no fear they will be inveigled into Labour’s'battalions, but admittedly, a huge, unknown faetor has been thrown into tho scales. The chief puzzle will be the political leanings of thousands of women and girl workers living alone in lodgings in the big cities, detached from home influence or any organisation.

Conservatives .. . 413 Liberals Labour . 151 Constitutionalists .... 6 Independents .. . Total • 615 Candidates for the next Parliament to date arc:— Conservatives .. . Liberals Labour 575 Total for the 615 seats 1634