THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20710, 7 May 1929, Page 9

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

o v RECORD LIST OF CANDIDATES. SPEECHES BEING BROADCAST. MILLIONS OF LISTENERS-IN. V (British ■ Official Wireless.) (United' Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) RUGBY, May 5. It is expected that in only eight of the 615 constituencies will there be no contests, when the general election takes place at the end of the month. Already 1685 candidates are in the field, which constitutes a record for parliamentary elections in this country. The registration figures show that on the new registers women entitled to vote predominate' for the first time. Wireless broadcasting is playing,- and will continue to-play,, an important part in the contest... Conservative, Labour and Liberal spokesmen have in turn used the microphone' duting the" last few weeks,, and arrangements have been made for the women representatives of each of the three parties to broadcast special addresses to women, Mr Lloyd George, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, and Mr Baldwin—the three-party leaders—will speak tm May 27, 28 find 29 respectively; delivering their final messages to the voters prior to' the polling on May 30. One in every three houses in the country has the- wireless, and it is estimated that listeners-in number 20,000,000. The Prime Minister this week-end issued a manifesto in which he urged voters to regard the Government’s fulfilment of. its pledges in the past four years as a guarantee that if returned to power it would again keep faith. Reviewing the work- of his adrainis tration, the. Prime Minister says that, despite, the industrial troubles in 1920; which cost the taxpayers £80,000,000 and the trade of the country- £400,000,000 trade is now more prosperous than at any time since the war. As. indications of the improvement he states that 78 coal mines have re-opened this year, and points to the shipbuilding revival, to the increase in the national trading profit from £86,000,000 to £149,000,000 during the past four years, and to the fact that 600,000 more people are working than in 1924, Since that date 800,000 houses have been erected, the cost of living has been reduced,' much, social legislation passed—includ the extension of the Id age pensions to insured workers at 65 instead of 70r—and a large scheme of rating and local government reform has been introduced .which will be of vast benefit to agriculture and industry. LABOUR PARTY’S PROSPECTS. MR GARVIN’S CONCLUSIONS;; LONDON, May 5. With peace in industry established, this is not the time to put in office either the ■ Socialist Party, a large section of which is definitely.' pledged to class warfare, or the Liberal Party/whose unemployment proposals even the Liberal themselves declare impracticable.” said Mr Baldwin, in a message to the nation, in which, after detailing the Government’s record he claims that. trade is more prosperous than it has been at any time since the war. Parliament will be dissolved on Friday Mr J. L. Garvin Arrives at two negative conclusions. First, that the Liberal dreams of becoming, the strongest .and even the second strongest single party is out of the question; second, that it ■’if .-that.,Labour can, double its ’ present : parUameutary numbei-s or gam the seats necessary to ..seenre . even a bare: majority in the House of Commons. He adds that no one knows the extent to which the Labourites and Liberals can knock out each other.—Australian Press Association.