THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1933. BRITISH POLITICS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22102, 4 November 1933, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1933. BRITISH POLITICS

The municipal elections in England and Wales have £hown a swing to Labour.which, it is suggested, confirms the view that the result of the East Fulham by-election last week was no flash in the pan. A Labour candidate won the East Fulham seat in the House of Commons with a majority of nearly 5000 votes over his Conservative rival, whereas in 1931 the Conservative member was returned with a majority of 14,500, The figures of last week show that the Labour vote nearly doubled itself, while the Conservative vote shrank to not much more than half its former dimensions. It was in 1931, of course, that the National Government swept the polls in consequence of the existence of a wave of concern arising out of a Labour Government’s refusal to face the facts of the economic situation, and therefore a more useful comparison of the voting in East Fulham is made between the results of the by-election last week and the polling for the same seat in 1929, when the Labour vote was considerably larger than it was in 1931 and the Conservative majority was less than 2000. Labour has now, however, done better than merely recover its former position in East Fulham, and may find evidence in the results of the municipal elections that the distribution of party allegiance has again undergone fluctuation to its advantage. The' Labour gains, apparently representing more than 170 seats, which mean corresponding losses to, Conservatives, Liberals, and Independents, are in contrast with the results of the municipal contests of last year, when Labour secured a net gain of twelve seats, only. At the municipal elections of 1931 the rout of Labour at the general election was swiftly followed by the loss by the party of 420 seats. In 1929 it had made a gain of 126. It has to be borne in mind that the elections of this week apply to representation of one-third only of the membership of the city of London and the British boroughs. An explanation of the swing to Labour can scarcely be offered at this distance, but it was certainly not to be expected that the party position indicated in the general election and municipal votes of 1931 would be indefinitely maintained. The result of the East Fulham contest was interpreted by the successful candidate as indicating that the British' people demand that their Government shall give a lead in disarmament, while it is asserted by the organ of the Labour Party that in the municipalities the electors struck for better housing and social services. The National Government has certainly been doing its best to promote disarmament, and it has even now embarked upon a great housing scheme, the cost of which is estimated at the huge figure of £95,000,000. When times are bad a proportion of the electors may be depended upon to look for remedy in a change of administration, and this may partly explain the gains which have been made by the Labour Party. Fortunately, the indications now point to a very definite recovery in Great Britain and to much improved prospects for her industry and trade.