The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1924. AN EMPHATIC VERDICT.

Southland Times, Issue 19389, 1 November 1924, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1924. AN EMPHATIC VERDICT.

None of the estimates put forward by the political parties in the Old Country anticipated the terrific landslide that has taken place. The Conservatives go back with a bigger voting strength than they obtained in the 1922 contest when the coalition was ended. Labour on that occasion had 142 seats, and the two wings of the Liberal Party obtained 117, while the victorious Conservatives boasted 347. When the tariff question was raised, Mr Baldwin* went to the country in accordance with a pledge given by Mr Bonar Law, and he suffered a defeat, the results giving the Parties the following voting strength: Conservative, 258; Labour, 191; Liberals, 158. This was a clear indication that the British elector was emphatically opposed to anything suggestive of abandoning Free Trade, b’ut the returns in the contest just concluded disclose with even greater emphasis what the opposition to Protection meant, because the position of the parties now is:— Conservatives 414 Labour 146 Liberals 36 This means that Labour has gone back practically to the position it was in after the 1922 contest, while the middle-of-the-roaders have just managed to escape a total eclipse. Of course, factors other than the tariff issue must be considered, but the figures show how the British political feeling goes when the question of Free Trade v. Protection is definitely put on one side. The Russian Treaty and the Workers’ Weekly case have combined to hit the Labourites a heavy blow, but the Liberals have been the worst sufferers, because the voters have been awakened to the clean-cut fact that the Party standing in the middle of the road is a danger when there are two forces, standing for definite things, in the fiekj. Torn by internal dissension, due to the presence of two factions, one leaning to Labour and the other to the Conservatives, the Liberals have sustained a defeat without parallel in Britain’s modern politics, and one from which the Party will not recover. It can also be said that the results of this contest will be felt all over the English-speaking world, to the detriment of any third party making a tortuous progress while endeavouring to convince itself and everybody else that it is sticking to a straight, sharply defined line because it happens to be somewhere in the vicinity of the road’s middle. Mr Ramsay MacDonald and his colleagues will console themselves for this defeat with brave speeches in which they will talk of a reactionary compact to defeat them, but people to-day are too sophisticated to be caught by the worl “reactionary,” which the Labourite used to brand anybody who cannot agree with him, the assumption being, of course, that everything he advocates means progress. Actually, of course, the old stiff Conservatism is dead—it has no place in the world—and the political organisations which adhere to the title Conservative have objective policies which have for their aim development on sound lines. The man who yells loudly for progress by leaps, who seeks to solve economic problems by the simple process of overturning everything, is not necessarily progressive—in fact, experience has taught us that he is retrogressive and more to be feared than any reactionary known in political history. It is from “progress” of this kind that Britain has retreated. The brief experience of the Labour Ministry has been enough to convince the people in the Old Land that, in the good old Liberal phrase, “the time is not ripe” for these leaping politicians. The effect on the foreign policy, insofar as it affects Germany, will not be altered by the election, but undoubtedly the attitude to Russia will alter but it will not return wholly to what it was in the days before Mr Ramsay MacDonald went into office. This year has been eventful in British politics, and even on purely domestic issues there will be changes as a result of the Labour occupancy of the Treasury Benches. The Conservative Party will be stronger and more vigorous, and the political situation will be clarified by the removal of the Liberals. It is this point which will have the greatest influence in the other countries of the Empire—the third, fence-perching party is not wanted.