BRITISH POLITICS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 49, Issue 15048, 28 November 1923, Page 6

BRITISH POLITICS.

ELECTION CAMPAIGN. LONDON, Tuesday. Lord Birkenhead opened his country tour, rivalling Mr. Lloyd George’s, by a descent upon Eanisay MacDonald’s seat, at Abcravon. lie said it was universal knowledge that the Labourites held a meeting to decide whether to jettison this “old man of the seas” (tho capita levy) and by a narrow majority decided to retain it. The tariff message Britain would send to other nations would not be provocative, but simply this: “You have imposed tariffs in order to preserve your own markets for yourself; we have homo markets, too.” It was ecitain that foreign manufacturers would establish factories here and British workmen would draw wages instead of doles. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, at Aberavon later, said that the Tories brought down Lord Birkenhead to preach the gospel of protection, but if 20 Birkenlieads were let loose it would only be to the advantage of Labour. Lord Birkenhead, at Cardiff, had a remarkable reception.

Mr. Lloyd George made frequent small speeches from platforms between Glasgow and Sunderland, whithei he came* to support Sir Hamar Greenwood. Speaking at Edinburgh, ho described the Conservative hopes as a song of victory played on the triangle, adding that triangular duels alone would give Toryism the chance of coming into power. Besides 5000 in the Sunderland Stadium an equal number in the adjoinin’' skating rink heard by means of amplifiers. The attack on free trade, lm said, was more subtle than those of 1900 and 1913 because it was conducted by an honest man. He drew an imaginnrv picture of Mr. Baldwin offering to carry a lady's grocery parcel. “I am an honest man,” says Mr. Baldwin. The lady looks at him twice. ’When she cots home she finds a tin of salmon missing and the apples gone, and decides not to let an honest man carry her groceries again. Mr. Baldwin, in the course of a speech, said lie was glad to know that a number of women candidates were standing for their cause. The Government’s "energies, if returned, must be devoted to combating unemployment; therefore, lie was reluctant to make promises; but lie agreed that the present discrimination in age between men and women voters could not be permanent He declared that lie would have nothing to do with the inflationist policy regarding tariffs. If monopolies resulted they could deal with them.—Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn.