LABOUR NOT PREPARED TO FACE ELECTORS

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7413, 22 December 1930, Page 7

LABOUR NOT PREPARED TO FACE ELECTORS

Political Suicide WILD HOLD OFFICE FOR TWO YEARS LONDON, Dee. 19. Important- political moves designed to enable the Labour Party to retain office for a further two years, or face an earlier general election with what are considered good battle-cries, were made at a joint meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party National executive and Labour peers. Mr Ramsay MacDonald declared that it would be political suicide to go to the country at present, lie seemed like the rest, to assume that the Liberals were so frightened that they were prepared to risk anything rather than an election at present. It remains to be seen whether or not Sir John Simon and others share this view. Mr Arthur Henderson, supporting tho contention, made it clear that; the party was aiming at remaining in office for a further two years in the hope that unemployment, would diminish. Wir Oswald Mosley told the Labourites that they would lose a hundred seats it they went to the country in tho immediate future. The News-Chronicle is reconciled to a still further period of Labour. It says that however bitterly tho Liberals may criticise the Government, it is infinitely preferable to a. Protectionist or Tory Administration. Mr MacDonald and Mr Henderson denied that there- was any pact with the Liberals, The meeting approved of the inclusion of the alternative vote in the forthcoming Electoral Reform Bill, in addition to points laid out in the Labour programme of electoral reform as approved of by flic recent- annual party conference. These include a reduction of clec tion expenses, the publication of accounts by political parties, tho prohibition of the use of motor cars at elections except for sick and infirm persons, the abolition of plural voting, and universal qualification, the division of doublc-membered constituencies into two single-member constituencies, and a reduction in the cost of election petitions. The meeting approved of the alternative vote. Mr J. Maxton vehemently protested that flic bill meant a yielding to tho Liberals 7 blackmail. Sir Oswald Mosley surprised everyone by accepting the bill, and appealing for party unity.