BRITISH CONSERVATIVES.

Wairarapa Age, 1 October 1930, Page 5

BRITISH CONSERVATIVES.

SOME CONFUSION OF AIMS IN BY-ELECTION. INTERVENTION BY EMPIRE: FBEE TRADERS. PARTY CHAIRMAN’S PROTEST. (Received Tuesday, 11.40 p.m.) LONDON, September 30. An intriguing political situation has arisen over the South Paddington by-election. Lord Beaver-

brook’s Empire Free Trade party threatened to run its own candidate unless the prospective Conservative candidate, Sir Herbert Lidiard, swallowed the whole programme. Sir Herbert was duly adopted at a lively meeting, at which his answers were considered so satisfactory that there in ao question of running an Empire Free Trade rival.

Sir Herbert Lidiard, however, has not satisfied the United Empire Party, with which Lord Rothermere is associated. They have adopted Mrs. Stewart Richardson. In the meantime, Mr! Neville Chamberlain, chairman, of the Conservative Party, has written to Sir Herbert Lidiard saying that his answers at the meeting appear to have gone far beyond his expression of views in’ a personal interview at head- ' quarters, and that support could not be accorded him unless he was prepared to support the official policy. Sir Herbert Lidiard replied that there was nothing in his policy to impair the unity of the Conservative Party. Here the matter rests at present. Mr. Baldwin, who has returned from Aix-les-Bains, ridiculed suggestions of his resignation.