WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18578, 10 December 1923, Page 9

WHAT WILL HAPPEN ?

GENERAL PBBPLEXITY. LABOUR'S LONE HAND. MR. \ BALDWIN RETICENT. RESIGNATION EXPECTED. COALITIONS DISCUSSED. By Telegraph.— Association—Copyright. (Received 4.5 pim.) A. »nd N.Z. LONDON, Dec. 8. The King returns to London from Sandringham to-day. % v The King's private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, called at .Downing Street to-day. The Cabinet will meet on Tuesday. According to the Parliamentary correspondent of the Daily Express Mr. Stanley Baldwin will resign both the Prime Ministership and the leadership of the Conservative Party, and will announce his de cision at a meeting of the party at the j Carlton Club next week. Mr. Baldwin and Sir Alfred Mond arrived at Paddington station almost simultaneously from their constituencies. Mr. Baldwin was grave and uncommunicative. He curtly remarked that he had nothing to say in regard to the situation. Speaking after the declaration of the poll in Bewdley, Mr. Baldwin said: "From the look of things I am going to have a rather difficult time, but I was never afraid of difficulties. At all events I shall he able to face them knowing more than ever that I have your confidence and support." Five Possible Solutions. What will happen next is being asked everywhere. The press discusses the situation speculatively, agreeing that it is unprecedented. A variety of courses are debated. They may be summed up thus: 1. Mr. Baldwin may resign, the King may not accept his resignation, and Mr. Baldwin may carry on uncontentions legislation, another election being held within 12 months. 2. The Earl of Derby and'other Conservative non-Protectionists may carry on instead of Mr. Baldwin. . 3. Conservatives and Liberals may form a Coalition. 4. The King may send for Mr. P.amsay Mac Donald, who may agree to form a Cabinet, Conservatives and Liberals acquiescing on condition that there is no contentious legislation and no capial levy. 5. The Labour and Liberal Parties may form a Coalition and carry measures mutually agreed upon.

Regarding the last suggestion, Labour Party officials to-day were emphatic in opposing co-operation with the Liberals. The Labour organ, the Daily Herald, commenting editorially says: " "When Mr. Baldwin resigns, as he mußt, the King will send for Mr. Mac Donald. The Asquithian Liberals are suggesting a Coalition with a Labour Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith in a prominent post and Viscount Grey as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. They say that Labour and Liberals at any rate agree on foreign affairs. Our reply is that nothing of the kind will be listened to by the leaders or the rank and file of the Labour Party. To suggest that Viscount Grey and Mr. Asquith are in harmony with Labour's views of foreign policy is to betray ignorance of the history of the past 20 years. Labour-Liberal Gulf. " Whatever be the alternative, even if it be the realisation of the plan of Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere, to revive a coalition under Mr. Lloyd George, it most be preferred by us to any union with men whom we have such unconquerable reason to distrust. Between official Liberalism and Labour foreign affairs form as great a gulf as home affairs. All we have to do is to wait awhile for complete power. A Tory-Liberal coalition will play into our hands and drive all decent Liberals into Labour's ranks. At the next election Labour will sweep the board." The Labour Party is holding a conference to-morrow. • > Sir A. Mond, interviewed, said that Lord Derby, being more or less a Free Trader, might form a Government and carry on a policy of tranquility for the time being. " There is one measure that must be carried before . the next election," added Sir Alfred, "that iB provision for a second ballot for threecornered contests. I submitted this when Minister, being of the opinion for years that the present system is opposed to democratic representation.

PRESS BEWILDERMENT. COALITION INEVITABLE. TWO CONSERVATIVE OPINIONS. BITTER ATTACK ON BALDWIN. (Received 4.50 p.m.) A. and N.Z. and Reutor. LONDON. Dec. 8. The Times editorially emphasises the completeness of the defeat of . Mr. Baldwin's programme upon which everything had been staked and the whole election fought. It attributes the result to the fact that the mass of electors are convinced that tariffs would raise prices and says : " The Government is practically impotent and stalemated. There will inevitably be a coalition. , Mr. Baldwin is confronted by a most difficult problem. None of the three parties can form a strong stable Government without an alliance, working arrangement or coalition. Mr. ''Baldwin has the choice of trying to promote such an alliance or allowing the Opposition to form an allance against him. He maj decide to meet Parliament and await or invite inevitable defeat. Sooner or later there must be a definite decision in the direction in which Conservatism is tending Mr. Baldwin's fir-it duty is still to provide the King with a Government capable of governing."

The Sunday Times says that the situation may compel the two constitutional parties to combine for defence of the Constitution! It is expected that Mr. Baldwin will resign and' be succeeded in the leadership of his party by a Conservative statesman less responsible for the recent gamble with the electorate. Mr. J. L. Garvin, in the Observer, says that his honest conviction is that a tariff will be carried and maintained some day in Britain, as in Australia, by Labour co-operation, but as a plank in the Con-' BOTvative Party programme it must be chopped out with a prompt axe. He proceeds to argue that, as the chief Conservative proposal has been rejected, so also has the chief Labour proposal even more decisively. Re-united Liberalism should be compelled to face its responsibilities for the situation which its electioneering methods, supported by the manoeuvre • of the press trusts, have created. The Daily Telegraph says : " The country did not want this election, and could »iot toler-ate another. We have today a three-party system, and must accept the ' consequences so long as it en-

dares. .We believed in Mr. Baldwin's proposals, and we believe in them still, bat we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that a victory for tariff reform is oat of the question so long as Lancashire does not waver from its faith. : ,

"It is the plain duty of the two constitutionalist parties to come together. We care little who is Prim© Minister. What is now important is . that there shall he stable government on lines generally accepted by these parties. It is open to Mr. Lloyd George to say that he warned the Conservative Party what would happen if it broJse up the coalition. Wo recall his words because Mr. Lloyd George is bound to play the position which has arisen. We repeat that there must be co-operation or ruin. If the Liberals withhold consent, or the Die Hards raise an? vain opposition, there will probably be a Socialist Government within a few months. We urge the Government to open negotiations immediately with the Liberals." The Morning Post declines to waste time on reproaches and lamentations. It takes the view that the mistake was not in recent boldness but in past timidity and proceeds to assume that Mr. Baldwin will resign. It urges that since present calamities have come chiefly from the degradation of Conservatives in the bondage of a coalition, Conservatives should refuse ever again to join a coalition of any sort. If they are now not strong enough to govern alone, let the other side try its hand. "If there is to be coalition, we think," says the paper, " that there is much -greater affinity between Mr. Lloyd George and Mr,. Bamsay Mac Donald than between the Conservative and the Liberal Parties. We make these observations in full knowledge of the terrible risks the country runs of Government by a Radical-Socialist coalition, but also see that the best hope of salvation lies in a free, strong, independent, self-respecting Conservative Party rather than a weak discredited unpopular centre coalition," The Daily Express says : "' A distinctive Conservative Government .is an impossibility. This overthrow is due to the crass stupidity and miscalculations c f Mr. Baldwin and his little ring of advisers. Every conception__of sanity should have urged Mr. .Baldwin, as a new and inexperienced Prime Minister, to walk carefully in the path Mr. Bonar Law had shown, but he declined the counsel proffered by experienced men who had served Conservatism responsibly ieforo Mr. Baldwin entered Parliament. While Protection at Homo has been hopelessly beaten, the policy of Empire Las suffered no defeat at all. If Mr. Baldwin had succeeded, the cause of Imperial preference would have suffered a setback lasting a generation."

" A rejuvenated Conservative Party can now carefully think out the whole question of revival of our foreign markets, and the creation of an Empire almost economically self-contained. Labour's gains exceed all prophet' expectations, hut they mostly have been in threecornered fights on a minority vote. Liberalism boasts that it stands in a middle position, in a word for 'tranquility tempered by fads.' If this is true, the united Conservative forces of Liberalism and Toryism could easily defeat the Labour menace."

The '" Daily Chronicle says. " Free Trade has decisively triumphed to-day. Mr. Baldwin, as a result of the shabbiest election trick ever stooped to by a British Prime Minister, finds a safe majority of 77, which the Govoromnt could have enjoyed for four years., converted into a minority cf about 100. besides a universal uprising against Protection and high prices wherein, it seems certain,, women voters took a strong part. There may also be discerned some general movement toward the Left. It is too early to say what the next step will be with our three-cornered Parliament." The Daily Chronicle, in a special article, suggests that the electors' emphatic and unmistakable rejection of Protection in any shape represents a personal triumph for Mr. Lloyd George's whirlwind missionary tour, in which by means of magnifiers and wireless hundreds of thousands of people heard his 60 speeches. The article adds that never before'has there been a man in British politics who can thus appeal to the common people. There is some flavour about Mr. Lloyd George's eloquence which enables it to carry conviction from its very plainness and sincerity.

JUBILATION OF VICTORS. MR. ASQUITH'S COMMENT. THE DEATH OF PROTECTION. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Reed. 4.5 p.m.) LONDON. Dec. 8. Mr. Asquith was met by a large crowd upon his arrival from Scotland. In response to incessant demands, for a speech, he said that the election had been one of the most discreditable adventures in history. "What is the result? Free Trade is safe, and Protection dead-and 1 buried." Mr. Lloyd George said that the results of the eloction make it clear that the trickery of "honest men" had ignominiously failed. The people had seen through them both. The most remarkable and, in many ways the most gratifying, feature of the election was the rejection by the agricultural districts of a huge bribe of £11,000,000 offered them by the Incorruptibies. The Labour headquarters yesterday were jubilant at the result of- the elections, emphasised the disappearance of the Government majority, and the fact that Labour' could still claim to be the Official Opposition. The Labour successes are attributed to the intensive work of the Labour Party during the last * two years, also the consistent and determined attitude of the party in regard to unemployment. The defeat of Mr. Arthur Henderson is much regretted by Labour. It is pointed out that the Liberals and Conservatives combined against him, the Conservative candidate having withdrawn. The Conservative headquarters are unwilling to make a statement in regard to the election before the returns are complete. The defeats are attributed entirely to the dear foofl cry, which in the circumstances- of a hurried election gave no time to be effectively contradicted.

SEAT FOR MR. CHURCHILL. 6 WEST DERBY SUGGESTED. A. and N.Z. LONDON, De«. 7. It is rumoured that Mr. Winston' Churchill will be asked to contest West' Derbyshire, where the election is postponed owing to the death of Mr. White, the Liberal candidate, against the Marquis of il'artington. Mr. Winston Churchill/arrived in London on Friday, and appeared to be in high spirits. He declined to discuss the situation. He said that he had not heard, the rumour that he had been invited to contest the West Derby neat. •■" '• v. ■