The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1924. THE GENERAL ELECTION

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11960, 15 October 1924, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1924. THE GENERAL ELECTION

The new atmosphere becomes more prominent and noteworthy in the British election field day by day. In the light of the election the new things political and the new things material are seen very clearly. The latter are the minor things, of course, but from the material point of view they are not without their special significance of great utility. The most typical of them can be realised in the spectacular campaign of Mr Ramsay Macdonald. No doubt all the leaders are making phenomenal journeys, covering great stretches of country, and using, wireless broadcasting to the utmost possible extent. But, judging by the cabled accounts, Mr Ramsay Macdonald has organised his travel work more elaborately thaif any other leader. His itinerary makes one gasp with its bold plan of swift agoing from Glasgow, through Edinburgh and Newcastle, all Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Wales, with his decorated car, his second car carrying an amplifier, and his programme of fifty speeches in four days. Millions will hear him, and most of them by wireless broadcasting. The latter is the chief- utility feature. It not- only extends the audiences, but it secures all the words it sends out from the interruptions so prevalent in election contests, and so confusing. That great advantage of a clearer and wider hearing is, of course, enjoyed by all the election speakers. It is amazing to read that a vast election campaign, Addressing twenty million electors and millions of their friends, is to be negotiated in three weeks. But the amazement disappears when one reads of the facilities which modern transport and communication offer for the task. The main advantage is a clearer and wider hearing for individuals and parties than was ever heard of before.

These material means will help the ideal. The number of these, expressed -in political form—as planks of political platforms—is confusing, especially as many planks overlap from one platform to another. The confusion can only be disentangled by - intelligent hearing, and this the superior and uninterrupted presentment must greatly assist. The commentators Have declared that the manifestoes in which these ideas are expressed are the "wordiest" on record. The criticism is both uncomplimentary and wrdng, the work evidently of hasty chroniclers who, for all their haste, permit themselves to go beyond their legitimate duty of chronicling. The fact is that the ideas are many, and, therefore, the words must he many. The fact that this is the first election of late years to turn on matters of domestic welfare is satisfactory to all well-wishers of the nation and Empire, who have for years bewailed the prominence given to foreign affairs in general elections, to the disadvantage of domestic problems waiting for solution. That these are getting their chance for serious and immediate consideration is notable thing, not the wordiness. If comment there must he, it should he a> comment of congratulation, not of derision.

The summaries we have of these manifestoes are very interesting reading. To review them in detail is not possible in a general survey of the whole. A bird's-eye view, however, shows the main lines of division, and the overlapping we have mentioned, which in its turn resolves itself into the things that are really the common property of all parties. Labour presents a domestic programme rising from housing and unemployment to nationalisation of mines and'railways, and refuses monopoly of foreign work to the Conservatives, by claiming credit for the Franco-German solution and nailing its colours to the Geneva Protocol as the only way to accomplish the muchdesired ending of war. The Conservatives, with Mr Winston Churchill hack in the fold most' fervently, take up protection, with a hold made firmer by the verbal 'dexterity of the Returned Prodigal, who calmly formulates tho new creed as fidelity to the Safeguarding of Industries Act and an affection for In* perial preference. They virtually claim the monopoly of correct progressive policy, and to them everything Socialistic is Bolshevik and anathema. The Liberals, led by the old fugleman Lloyd George, take up "the middle course, the sane middle course of true progress:” They exalt the old banner of free trade far higher than Labour does, and several of their planks arp Labour’s, including Mr Asquith’s approach to nationalisation of mines—"acquisition by the State of Imperial rights and coalfields’’ — State-aided establishment of superI power stations, and dealing with urban and rural land problems, with a hint of taxation of land values which figures i prominently in the Labour manifesto.

The three manifestoes cover a vast mass of questions. About these we shall hear much during the next few days. The Communists have put forth a manifesto also. It has two defects. It is glaringly ridiculous, and it has, after the formal kick-out of Communism and all persons Communistic by the Labour Conference and by the Leader of the Labour Government, not a single friend of any political value. We shall, of course, hear of it during the next few days, not because it counts in any way, hut because it is noisy. Sound and fury are always heard. One watches this big field of electoral combat for signs of the good sense that takes care to avoid the votesplitting which is the wrecker of all electoral systems. There are signs in the shape of reports of attempts of party managers to arrange plans against the common enemy. But, with the exception of one or two negotiations which seem to look hopeful, there is nothing definite enough to encourage hope. There is some talk of a wrecking campaign, a tactic designed to kill one enemy by splitting, and benefit another. This sort of thing wrecks more than the enemy aimed at. Seeking revenge, it wrecks not only the particular enemy, hut the electoral system. This sort of wreckage is used to holster up claims for electoral reform. Its real character is not as a witness for alterations of doubtful value, hut as proof that angry stupidity blunders into suicidal revenge. Can we hope that political human nature will avoid such a pitfall this time? Tt has never been wise enough for that in any country. After all, it is never too late to mend.