The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1929 THE UNKNOWN WINNER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 676, 30 May 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1929 THE UNKNOWN WINNER

WHO ivill win the national election battle today in Great Britain? This is a question that had best be left with the jesting Pilate’s “What is Truth?” There is and can be no definite answer. Even Mr. Lloyd George, boldest and most confident of political seers and soothsayers, does not know, though he appears to he fairly sure in his knowledge that the Liberals may not expect to have a majority. But he at least hopes to double their latest representation —46 members —m the House of Commons, and so hold the balance of power, which has become a perquisite of the battered clan. If not the Liberals, which of the two other and greater political parties is more likely to gain the great day? Here, again, prudence suggests leaving the answer till tomorrow, when even the most foolish prophets can he supremely wise after the event. It is true that thousands of interested observers everywhere are willing to hack tlieir fancy in the way that has become a passion with a sporting race, hut few seem willing to offer odds oil either party. An inherent Tory might do so out of party patriotism and perhaps with a thin conviction, hut the Socialist could do the same for his party only out of hope and loyalty. The wisest way appears to he in following the late Lord Oxford’s advice and “Wait and see 1” The field of battle is crowded with combatants and campfollowers, while flic rank and file of electors represents the greatest army of voters that has ever decided a general election contest in British politics. There are 28,000,000 potential voters with women in the majority by close on 2,000,000. In this unparalleled array of feminine power- —a tender hand may viciously strike out many a famous name—there, are five million young women with the right to vote for the first time. No wonder the candidates are’ dubious of their fate. Their number, too, is an’outstanding record. There are 1,730 claimants for favour, or over 300 more than the total five years ago. Only 615 members of Parliament are wanted, which. is really far more than the House of Commons could accommodate. But in that august assembly, where business frequently is as dull as anything that has made our own Parliamentarians sleep in boredom and snore in sub conscious protest, the proportion of absentees always is extraordinarily high. Many politicians earn their wages very easily, though they are glib enough in contending that no one sliQuld muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. Several candidates, including, of course, Mr. Speaker who, in England, does not need to fight for his place in Parliament, and the popular “Father of the House,” the lit. Hon. T. P. O’Connor who has been its most member continuously for forty-four years, have enjoyed a clear walk-in. But they are not many all told. Most of the other candidates have been compelled to figlit hard for acceptance or rejection. There are three-cornered contests in no fewer than 444 constituencies, and quadrangular contests in 26. There are only 102 straight fights. Since the General Election in 1924, when the Conservatives were returned to power with the formidable total of 415 members, thei-e have been 67 by-elections in which the Government Party lost 18 seats. The numerical state of the rival parties today is: Conservatives 397, Labour 163, Liberals 46, Independents and miscellaneous 9. It lias been confidently predicted by the forces against the Government that the Conservatives will lose at least 200 seats. Perhaps so, hut they have been equally confident that, although their casualties cannot he less than heavy, the final thrust of the battle will yield them a working majority. And Labour is neither backward nor modest in anticipation. It, also, has great confidence in securing a seeond opportunity to do all the things it vowed to do at its first chance, hut was not permitted to perform. It is, of course, impossible to indicate the direction in which the decisive women’s vote may go. The new women probably will follow tlieir elder sisters and vote with father or some other political Solomon in tlieir households. Some of them have been shrill in tlieir dislike of the Tories and even Viscountess Astor had to denounce voluble ladies in a slum area as “you pack of Bolshies!” But the Conservatives and Liberals have daughters, too. whose politics and ways are not much better than Bolshevism.