THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1923. HOME ELECTION POINTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18752, 4 January 1923, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1923. HOME ELECTION POINTS.

! The London newspapers of November 16 and the three or four following days, containing the General Election results and tho press comments, make very interesting rending, though it must, be acknowledged that the cable furnished a fairly comprehensive report of the chief facts and circumstances. A glance at the Observer's Election map, in which the Conservative areas appear in white and the Liberal and Labour areas in varying darker shades, conveys an effective bird's-eye view of the territorial situation. The white spaces in Scotland and Wales are few and far between ; but in England a very different picture is exhibited. White is the predominant colour of virtually all the Midlands, the south, and the south-east, as well as of a considerable part of the north. "The Conservatives swept London. Thoy swept the English agricultural counties. They won a handsome majority of all the English borons'" Even in those county divisions which are really industrialised and not rural, they more than held their own. England, tho "predominant partner," gave them nearly nineteen-twentieths of their total strength. It is true that over sixty seats were lost, but the unexpected feature of the party achievement was the discounting of these losses in large measure by the gain of more than forty seats. It is also true that in over eighty constituencies Conservatism won by a minority vote ; but it has been pointed out that the moral significance of the result is not invalidated in any conclusive degree by this circumstance,

seeing that Labour derived still greater profit, in proportion, from the multiplicity of three-cornered contests. More than fifty Labour candidates owed their return to a vote which was a minority of the total poll. We note, by the way, that the Labour Party is now denominated the “Socialist” Party by some newspapers, “which is the name by which it ought always to be called, the vast majority of the workers having voted against it.” The Asquith Liberals were the worst sufferers from the anomalies of the present electoral system, and they are undoubtedly underrepresented in the new Parliament. It is not surprising that the adherents of the Proportional Representation Society (which, in deference to the modern passion for initials, has abbreviated the description of its propaganda to “P.R.”) have hastened to deduce lessons from the fact that no fewer than 178 members have been returned on minority polls. The secretary of the society, ip an interview, selects the record of the voting at Portsmouth Central as a salient case. Privett, F. J. (C.) 7,666 Fisher. Sir T. (X.L.) 7.659 Btamsdon, Sir T. (L.) 7,192 Gourd. A. G. (Lib.) 6,126 Total 28,580 The silting- member was returned by a little more than a quarter of the votes cast—to be precise, 26 per cent. Mr Lloyd George was not warranted in declaring (as he did in the Daily Chronicle of November 22) that “the result of the elections has fully justified those who maintained that no party standing alone could hope to s,ecure the measure of public support which will guarantee stable government.” If Mr Bouar Law steers his course sagaciously there is no obvious reason why the Home Country should not enjoy the blessing of stable government for the normal period of the Parliament’s duration ; and there is point in the reflection that stability is the very objective which proportional representation would not have secured in November last. At the same time it is unquestionable that the advocacy of a change of System will be strengthened by the recent circumstances, and there is some force in Mr Lloyd George’s reminder that “what has happened at this election may be repeated at the n,ext —but not necessarily in favour of the same party.” The ex-Primo Minister does not disguise his apprehension that Socialism, with luck on its side, might be placed in power by a decisive, majority of members elected by a minority of votes. It must be admitted that ho took the discomfiture of his National Liberals with reasonably good grace. For it was more than a discomfiture —it was a debacle. “Everybody," everywhere, seemed to be gaining from the National Liberals. That hapless group, losing eighty seats and gaining only half a dozen, was paying expenses all round.” In this connection the question has been asked; “Are the election tours of illustrious statesmen worth while?” Mr Lloyd George’s melodramatic progress was likened to Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign, but a computation of the results of the polling at the thirteen places at which he spoke just before the elections is not very flattering to the oratorical charmer.

On the whole, a spirit of good humour seems to'have prevailed before, during, and after the elections. There was a recurrence of the amazing incident of child-voting. At least six youngsters, short even of their teens, exercised the right of citizenship. At Portsmouth a boy of two was allowed to vote. “A Cleethorpos boy of six, named Thompson, whose name was found to be on the register, spent the morning practising crosses, and in the afternoon was taken triumphantly to the polling booth by his mother and recorded his vote,’ The largest majority (20,882) was obtained by a Conservative at Londonderry, second and third places being taken by a National Liberal (18,362) at Stockport and a Conservative (16,921) at Bolton. Though only two of the thirty-two women candidates were returned. the total feminine poll (227,743) represented more than twice as many votes for each candidate as were polled in 1918. Three contests—at Carlisle, Wallserid, and Penrith—brought about the parliamentary obliteration of the Lowther clan, which has not been without at least one representative in the House of Commons for a hundred years. There is now a Prohibitionist in the House—that is to say, a member who posed before the electors simply as a Prohibitionist. Even in New Zealand there has never been a special representative of this kind.' The Dundee numbers (two seats) are worth quoting: Scrymgeour, E. (Prohbtn.), 32,578; Morel, E. D. (Lab.), 30,292; Macdonald, D. J. (Nat. Lib.), 22,244; Churchill, Winston (Nat. Lib.), 20,466; Pilkington, R. R. (Ind. Lib.), 6681; Gallacher, W. (Com.), 5906. Mr Scrymgeour, in his address of thanks to the elector? and to Heaven, unctuously praised “God, the Almighty Organiser of the Universe, for so astounding a victory at the polls,” and declared his opposition to the “entire Coalition Forces of Gross Darkness”—so that his Prohibitionism appears to be tinged with politics, after all.