The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1950. OXFORD BY-ELECTION RESULT

Wanganui Chronicle, 8 November 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1950. OXFORD BY-ELECTION RESULT

'I'HE University town of Oxford is fast becoming an industrial area as a result of the development of the motor-car manufacturing industry being established there. From an out-of-the-way conservative community it is therefore being catapulted into the frontline of industrialism through the success chiefly of the Morris Organisation. Any alteration in political opinion in this town is, therefore, of consderable interest because it is likely to reflect public opinion over a wide area of the country, and particularly in the industrial areas.

The holding of a by-election in Oxford is, therefore, to be regarded as of more than local importance. The significant fact of the result is that the Conservative Party was one of the three major parties to be represented and it was this Party which increased by nearly 100 per cent, its general election majority of 3606. True there was a reduction in the total poll of 10,743 votes as compared with the general election but that does not, invalidate the result. The law of averages can be applied and there is no reason for believing that it applied disproportionately in respect to one candidate any more than to the others. The by-election result can be regarded as a fair average sample of public opinion in the Oxford community. Such a turnover of votes seems to have occurred chiefly at the expense of the Labour Party although thus much cannot definitely be said until the full details of the contest are available. But the fallaway of Labour’s votes by 3517 cannot be denied. Either these people stayed away or changed their allegiance. The probability is that some stayed away from the polls while others voted for the Conservatives where previously they voted for the Labour Party. Evidently to cry “Down with the Tories!” is insufficient to dissuade people from voting for the Conservatives. What has happened since the recent general election to which this very marked changeover of votes can reasonably be attributed? In order to answer that question it would be wiser to look for the more obvious causes than for the remote ones. It is the obvious which influences the majority of people’s thinking. The first act in the situation to be taken into account is that at the general election the Labour Party lost is majority and there is now only a slight margin of voting in the House of Commons which keeps the Government in office. The average man’s sense of the fitness of things impels him to the belief that any substantial action in the political field should have a reasonable majority to support that action. Democracy is not to be operated by taking advantage of accidentals; majority rule requires a majority of votes in the country and of representation in the House of Commons or other popular chamber. This the Labour Party does not possess in sufficient strength to give it a mandate from the nation. The public reaction against a government which acts without such a necessary body of support is sound because it means that a policy implemented with insufficient support is almost sure to be reversed in the very near future to the detriment of the community’s wellbeing. , Had the Government which Mr. Attlee leads been satisfied to pursue the current armaments programme and engage in some housecleaning activities the probability is that the public would consider that the Attlee administration would be as much justified in engaging in these operations as any other government that is likely to be brought into being under present conditions. But the Labour Party has determined that there shall be no easing of the legislative programme to come into accord with public opinion. The Government has determined to hasten its programme, evidently fearing that unless it exploits this last-minute opportunity to do so the occasion will soon be lost. By committing the country to its particular programme, it is seemingly argued, it will be the more difficult for any succeeding government Io put such programme into reverse. The steel industry, for instance, is to be nationalised and with nationalisation there will be a dispersal of the personnel of steelmaking firms and, consequently, if the nationalised industry proves to be a failure there will ba no one to go in and re-establish Britain’s position. This is all very well for those who are occupying ringside seats in the nationalisation and non-nationalisation contest, but it means the bread and the butter of the men and women who fabricate steel. That is precisely what many people in Oxford are now doing. If their raw materials are out of line in either quality—and there are very many grades of steel—or price all the ingenuity and all the industrious effort of the motor-car manufacturers will be nullified and employment which is profitable and efficient will be lost to Oxford and the country. It is to the credit of Britain’s motor-manufacturing industry that it has won to a high place in the world, even exporting a large number of cars to the United States of America and it. is this industry that the theory-fascinated Socialists of the United Kingdom are prepared to put in jeopardy. The Labour Party by presenting itself as a working man’s party —which it is not, for it has some of the richest men in England in the House of Commons on its side—is enabled to catch a number of votes from people who believe that they are playing for their side and class. But the Labour Government of the United Kingdom has to confess that it cannot hold down the cost of living, which is another way of saying that it cannot hold up the standard of living. There is no magic which it can apply to the situation. There is no management of the currency which will avoid the elementary fact that everything must be paid for and it has become evident to all that the problem of living costs is not solved by expanding the paper money supply. The measure of nationalisation that has already been implemented in the United Kingdom has proved to be a bitter disappointment to the workers. The railwaymen. and there are a considerable number of them resident in Oxford, have found that when they had a trades union that was free to negotiate with the companies who owned the railways there was bargaining on equal terms. Today the trades union official has an interest in keeping the Government in office and in favour with the nation as a whole. The rank and file consequently find that now the Labour Government is their boss negotiations cannot be conducted as freely as formerly, nor are the trades union officials pursuing the case with the earlier singleness of purpose. They naturally enough have an eye for the big positions that are to be filled by those who are willing to play ball with the Government. The resulting disillusion .spreads beyond the ranks of the railwaymen and the workers in the motor-ear factories are not to be expected to be immune from such a contagion. Herein lies the probable cause of the mass defection of workers from the ranks of the Labour Parly in the town of Oxford. The Labour Party in office has been weighed in the balance and found wanting and many workers arc facing up to this obvious fact and are casting their votes in the light of such realisation.