The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1944. Trends In British Politics

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22788, 12 January 1944, Page 4

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1944. Trends In British Politics

THE second by-election victory of the Common Wealth Party has been interpreted by The. Times as a strong sign of dissatisfaction with the British Government's domestic record and its preparations for peace., It is reported that the electors of Skipton have nothing but gratitude for Mr Churchill as a war leader, but they think less well of him in his secondary capacity of leader of the Conservative Party. In the past two vears the Government has received a number of unexpected rebuffs at by-elections and these setbacks have been appraised in various ways. They could be attributed th the apparent failure of the Government to give more concentrated attention to post-war problems; the Government’s seeming lack of anxiety about these post-war questions has been suspiciously ascribed to lack of interest and a possible Conservative desire to return after the war to the comfortable pre-war status quo. However, it has been argued that there can be no turning back to the “old order.” British leaders, it is suggested, will have to recognise that this, in the words of the vice-President of the linited.States, is the “century of the common man.” It has also been argued that Great Britain will be co impoverished after the war that a general levelling process will be inevitable. This view’, however, is not shared by Sir William Beveridge, a strong critic of the “pessimists ’ who hold that the British people will necessarily be poorer after the war. “The only experience we have had of war,” he declared, “is that it docs not leave us poorer. Why should we be poorer after this war? There will have been some material destruction, but we shall be the same people, with a great increase in capital and equipment and many new technical inventions. I hope above all that we shall have a new social invention enabling us to do without unemployment.” Special attention will be paid to any statement coming from Sir William Beveridge, who as the author of the Social Security Report, has become the living symbol of the . better conditions the poorer people of Great Britain hope to attain when the war is' won. This general betterment of conditions, however, will not be achieved without political action, and it is difficult at this stage to anticipate the likely post-war course -of British politics. Byelections are pointers, but they are not infallible signs. The desires of the people will have to be manifested through politics, but the question is: what are the desires of the people? W'hat will they demand of their leaders? This question was considered recently by the Economist, which,, wrote: “There is a deepset, heartfelt desire among the people for leadership, not for the orders and instructions which only war makes tolerable, nor for the raucous shouts of a Euhrer or the slight of pen of the cynical journalist, but for genuine guidance, in concrete, tangible terms, on the possibilities of a decent, full and fair life after the war, and on the price that they must pay for it in the restraint of a freedom that, without it, is in any case only nominal.” It is widely believed that the first post-war General Election in Great Britain will result in the downfall of the Conservative Party. One basis of this belief is that the Conservatives have been in office so long that they must be caught by the swinging pendulum. Another is that the Conservatives allowed Germany to grow strong and Britain to grow weak when they had the power to curb both of these developments. It is argued that Mr Churchill’s weakness is that bis Administration still rests upon the support of men who in the pre-war days backed this disastrous policy. A third reason supporting this yiew is provided by a backward look at political history. The Liberal Party fell after the last war and it is assumed that the same fate awaits the Conservatives after this one.

These pointers of doom for the Conservative Party are not necessarily reliable. The pendulum does not always have to swing in politics. The fact that it. has not swung for a long period does not necessarily mean that it must sU-ing at the first opportunity. Again, if the Conservative Party, by its indifferent policy in European affairs, helped to cause the war, there will be some compensation in the fact that the leader of the Conservative Party, backed by a predominantly Conservative Parliament, will have led the country to victory. Mr Churchill’s personal reputation stands so high that he has as good a chance as anybody of success in the first post-war election. Labour at present provides the only likely alternative to a Conservative Government, but it cannot be assumed that Labour is necessarily capable of seizing the opportunity. It did not have a distinguished record in the period between the two wars, and if ’‘war guilt” attaches to British politicians, those in the Labour ranks have to share it with the Conservatives. The general weakness of Labour was fairly assessed by the Economist when it wrote: “As a Socialist Party, its contribution has been simply a general denunciation of the capitalist form of society, without any readiness to take the risk of destroying that society by revolutionary means. Its policy has, therefore, been a compound of collective bargaining and inveterate opposition.” Dissatisfaction with both the Conservative and Labour Parties is implied by the second success of the Common Wealth Part}, but it has yet to be seen how far Sir Richard Acland’s group is capable of development. In any case, a new party takes a long time to grow.