THREE DAYS TO GO

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 109, 21 February 1950, Page 3

THREE DAYS TO GO

POLLING DAY IN BRITAIN CAMPAIGN REACHES CLIMAX (N.Z.P. A.—Copyright) LONDON, Feb. 29. With only three days remaining before polling day, the British election campaign is drawing to a climax. The two major parties approach the last stage with unshaken confidence, but each side is maintaining its vigilance against surprise tactics or the introduction of uncanvassed issues. " . / Mr Attlee is depending on the Labour Government’s record. In his linal broadcast election speech, Mr Attlee said that in four years and a half great economic advances had been made, thanks to magnificent efforts by workers and managements alike. Mr ChurchilPs appeal for talks with Russia at the highest level continued to excite lively comment by leading speakers in the election campaign during the week-end. The political correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that the foreign affairs issue raised by Mr Churchill may prove a decisive factor in the election, because previously party organisations were unanimous that the voters had shown littlp interest in foreign affairs. This has now ceased to be true. “Mr Attlee did a good deal in his election broadcast on Saturday night to raise his party’s stock,” says “The Times.” “A characteristic feature of the quiet campaign has been the unspectacular progress of the Prime Minister through the constituencies. Back in London at the week-end, he wound up his election broadcasts in the same sober, sincere fashion.

Dignified Reply

“Mr Attlee replied with dignity to charges of being too forward in his socialism and too backward in seeking a settlement with Russia. He spoke simply of the war-time legacy of loss and destruction with which his Government startedjaut, and of the hard work in recovery of the ordinary British people. “Yet, at bottom, Mr Attlee’s broadcast still left without answers important questions which voters with their minds to make up have to weigh. It is not true that the aspirations of Mr Attlee’s colleagues are, according to their own professions, designed to serve everyone, not' just a class or a section, as Mr Attlee put it. “Moreover, the Prime Minister, for all the modesty of his appeal, claimed too much for his party’s policies.” “A poll of public opinion shows that the Conservatives have gained the lead in public favour,” says the “Dailyi Express.” “They are now IS points ahead of. the Socialists after being level with them a week ago. “The poll was taken in the seven days ending on February 16. The period included the Edinburgh declaration by Mr Churchill on the atomic bomb, but most of the answers were given -before his speech.” The Minister of State (Mr Hector McNeil), speaking in Glasgow, said: “The Tories will attack on Thursday with every resource they can mobilise. They know .that this is their last chance. If we have another five years in office, private enterprise will never unscramble the eggs that the Labodr Party will make.” The special correspondent of the New Zealand Press Association in London says that, of the three main party leaders, Mr Clement Davies (Liberal Party) is the only one likely to have a stiff fight in his own constituency. Mr Attlee, in Walthamstow, has one of the safest and most solid of Labour’s London seats, and Mr Churchill, though he is facing three opponents at Woodford and has had large blocks of working-class flats included in his constituency as a result of boundary alterations, is still considered to have a firm hold on the seat.

Tradition of Liberalism

Mr Davies represents Montgomery, a largely agricultural Welsh county with a declining population, Montgomery has a long tradition of liberalism, and all three of the members it has returned in the last 70 years have been Liberals. In 1945, Mr Davies, who has represented the county for nearly 21 years, had a majority of 3212 votes in a straight fight in which he had Labour support against Conservative. This time, Mr Davies Avill have a Labour opponent and also a Conservative, who is a miner capable of se-. curing an unusual proportion of working-class support. The Labour candidate is a working farmer. One national newspaper which sent a special correspondent to Woodford to investigate Mr Churchill’s prospects reported that “the whole division is living not under, the shadow of the great name, but In it's universal presence.” Nevertheless it is recommended that Mr William Hancock, who is opposing the Speaker of the House of Commons (Colonel D. Clifton-Brown) at Hexam in the present election, polled more than 10,000 votes against Mr Churchill in 1943. Since 1945, .14,000 new voters have come into the Woodford division. Most of them live in large council housing esates, where political, sympathies generally incline strongly towards Labour.

Mr Attlee’s Constituency With Labour, Liberal and Communist candidates opposing him, Mr Churchill has not an easy light, -but is nevertheless considered to be sure of a safe mapority. Mr Attlc-e may be even surer of West Walthamstow than Mr Churchill is of Woodford. Walthamstow is a closely built-up working-class area consisting mainly of terraced semidetached houses. Tt gave the Labour candidate a majority of 12,000 votes over a Liberal in 1945, and Labour Party headquarters are confident that it will do as much against a Liberal, a Conservative and an Independent next week. _ The Independent candidate for West Walthamstow is Mr Lester Hutchinson, one of the rebels expelled from the Labour Party last year. He is receiving strong Communist backing.