THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20709, 6 May 1929, Page 7

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

WOMEN AS CANDIDATES. LARGE NUMBER EXPECTED. (British Official Wireless.) (United Press Association.; (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) RUGBY. May 3. It is anticipated that about 80 women will be nominated, ns candidates for the general election, which takes place on May 30, This number compares with 41 nominated at the last General Election. THE NEXT GOVERNMENT. LABOUR LEADER’S OPINION. LONDON, May 3. Mr Ramsay MacDonald, speaking at Port Talbot, said that the new Government, of whatever colour it might be, would enter upon an inheritance more bankrupt than any other Government in Britain had ever faced. It was going to he no easy task. The great problem would be the reconditioning of the coun-try-—Australian Press Association. FIERCE CAMPAIGN EXPECTED. MANCEUVRING FOR POSITION. ■ LONDON, May 4. (Received May 5, at 7 p.m.) Tho state of the parties after the genera] election of 1025 was as follows : Conservatives .. .. .. 413 Liberals 40 Labour .. • jgy Constitutionalists .. .. 6 Independents .... ~ 5 Total .. .. .. .. 615 The candidates for the next Parliament are as follow; Conservatives 584 Liberals .. ... .. 475 Labour 575 Total for 615 seats .. 1634 Nomination day is May 20, and polling day May 30. While the election campaign has not yet fully developed, there is sufficient evidence to show that it will be one of the fiercest and most complicated and puzzling in British political history. All the parties arc at present manoeuvring for position, and the issue is not yet clearly defined, but the platform and press campaigns alike are already being -londudted in the strongest language. The first official lists of candidates are not expected before next week-end. The Labour Party has already endorsed 555 candidates, and in all probability will endorse a furthei 20. This is easily a Labour record. There are at present 64 women candidates, compared with 41 last election, and these arc divided as follow Conservatives 8, Liberals 25, Labour 28, Communists 2, Independent 1. Even this increased total is small in view of the women voters’ predominant electorate, which now includes half the nation, compared with less than a century ago, when scarcely a fiftieth part of the nation voted. Of these women voters there are many thousands of young women of Britain’s middle class and better class homes who live in an atmosphere quite remote from Socialism, and there is no fear that they will be inveigled into Labour’s battalions, but admittedly a huge unknown factor has been thrown into the scales. The chief puzzle will be the political leanings of thousands of women and girl workers living alone in lodgings in big cities and detached from home influence or any organisation.— Australian Press Association.