THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1924. CONSERVATISM IN EXCELSIS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19317, 1 November 1924, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1924. CONSERVATISM IN EXCELSIS.

The results of the General Election at Home are almost staggeringly decisive. The Conservatives have simply swept the country. Labour, after its nine months’ trial in office, goes back to Parliament in largely diminished force; and the Liberal Party barely preserves its existence. The election is likely to live in political history as an instance of the weakness attaching, to expert prognostications. No one ventured to predict this absolutely unequivocal expression of popular opinion. The Conservatives themselves were curiously modest in their outlook, though >a gradual decline in Labour confidence had been traceable for some days. The Liberals never had a hope of independent victory, but few people can have anticipated that they would far© so ignomihiously as they have done. The reflection is suggested that we have to go back to 1906 for anything akin to the tremendously preponderant position established- by the Conservatives on Wednesday. At the election of that year, following upon Mr Joseph Chamberlain’s tariff-reform crusade, Conservatism suffered a debacle which virtually reduced it to impotence in Parliament for a decade or more. The Liberal majority (including the Labour and Irish votes) was no less than 356. And in the House that will assemble this month the Liberals will not number 401 It is true that in 1918 the Lloyd George Government was returned with a majority of 263, but that was not the occasion of a straight-out party fight. Two years ago Mr Bonar Law secured a majority of 79. Last' year Mr Baldwin found himself in a minority of almost exactly similar proportions. In the how Parliament he will be leader of a company numbering nearly 420 out of 615 members. It is -not owing to the exercise of any magnetic influence on his part that this great result has come about. For Mr Baldwin is not endowed with magnetic qualities. Neither, for that matter, was Sir Henry Campbell-Ban-nerman, who led the Liberals to the great triumph in 1906. Movements rather than men, the steady undercurrent of public thoughtfulness rather than inspiring leadership, most frequently guide the development of popular convictions. It might perhaps be said that Mr Baldwin is a fortunate statesman. There never was a speedier retrieval of an obvious blunder. This weekjs results show that the electors in 1923 were not, on general grounds, revoking the verdict of 1922. They simply wonted- to let it he plainly understood that they had no time for a revival of the protectionist heresy. The electors were Conservative then as they are to-day. Why the party’s majority has so enormously increased is sure to bo a subject of keen discussion. Dissatisfaction and suspicion regarding the doings and aims of the Labour Government, a growing determination that there should be no mistake concerning the wise stability of British policy at home and abroad, a not extravagant notion that, the maintenance in office of a minority Ministry unable to command parliamentary confidence did not make for the enhancement of British prestige, an element of nervousness as to the integrity of domestic administration, may all have contributed to the recording of a verdict which, as regards the main conclusion, cannot be misunderstood. The personal features of the results are not of outstanding interest. Apart from those which we were able to notice yesterday, there is Mr Winston Churchill's success, which will only be regretted by tmcompromising extremists. It is sufficient to say that he is too able and famous a man to be permanently excluded from the House of. Commons, though we take it that his reconversion to Conservatism will not ensure his inclusion in Mr Baldwin’s new Cabinet. It would have been a pity if Mr Ramsay MacDonald had lost his seat. Largo numbers of people who will he glad of his flitting from Downing street and the Treasury Bench would have deplored the withdrawal of his great and engaging personality from Parliament. Indeed (reverting to a previous point), if magnetic leadership could have won the battle, the issue might have been different. Mr Lloyd George’s victory over his academic opponent was a foregone con.-.

elusion, but it is only a personal triumph, and the redoubtable conqueror of 1918 is in a sadly insignificant political position.