SIDELIGHTS ON HAMMERSMITH BY-ELECTION: ENGLISH POLITICS A BIT BRIGHTER THAN OURS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 70, 28 March 1949, Page 5

SIDELIGHTS ON HAMMERSMITH BY-ELECTION: ENGLISH POLITICS A BIT BRIGHTER THAN OURS

(By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist) London, Feb. 26

The delusion that I had strayed by mistake into an embalming parlour kept me awake through almost half of the political meetings duty called me to during the last general election in New Zealand. Not so during the suubsequent municipal elections, when the delusion hardened to cer vtainty.

Finding the South Hammersmith by-election this week hailed as the liveliest since Gravesend, I went along to find Whether the spirit of the hust-, ings has flagged so dolefully here as in New Zealand. Not in Hammersmith.

Being only twenty tube minutes from Westminster, it attracted talent which farther flung electorates would not. Socialists and Tories .mustered batteries of medium artillery, and the Tories brought out their Big Bertha in the shape of Winston Churchill. This move is not now regarded as clever. Heckling Teams

The other end of the scale of imported talent comprised heckling teams which attended their opponent's meeting each evening, asking the same questions, getting the same :answers and making the same noises. Monotony blunted their efforts as The campaign wore on. Speakers at 1 ig indoor meetings got good hearings from audiences composed largely of the faithful. It would seem common to Britain and New Zealand that a political audience prefers to be happily confirmed in its views than informed of ■ others.”

Street meetings allowed more give ~and take between speaker and audience. A rash of such meetings broke out right through the electorate, run from loudspeaker vans. Heckling was pretty much to the political point. I saw plenty of disagreement, but no rowdyism. It was tolerably difficult to find a Hammersmith voter getting excited and a newspaper survey of pubs, pictures and the palais de danse showed patrons of these c r tablished arts were not being enticed away by a short season political show. 'The Tories, as even their best friends mow tell them, fell through a platform practically devoid of planks. "“What is your policy?” hecklers demanded constantly and effectively. . Condemning the Socialists in all •directions for expense and mismanagement, the Tories were never in my hearing pinned down to what "they would have done instead. How they would pare the losses on nationalised enterprises. Which Socialist enactments they would repeal. They made a fairly good case that many of the social services so proudly claimed by the Socialists as ' “all their own work” had been devised by the predominantly Tory •coalition government of 'Churchill. Then, having made this case, they ■stubbed their toes badly in their ■Commons vote against the generally popular National Health Scheme. Communists’ Support

Though the Socialist candidate was not exhilarated by gaining the ■Communists’ unsolicited endorsement, the Tory proposition that British socialism is a high road to Communism was seemingly a little much. The Socialists presented no new policies, but promised to continue implementing those endorsed by the country at the 1949 general ■■-election. The only bribe was the derationing of sweets.

Churchill's personal popularity being so evident, the note was one of sorrowing that such a beloved national leader should be so handled by Tory party schemers, who had him listed for Lloyd George obscurity as soon as he had served their purpose.

Housing was the big local issued, with the Tory machine skidding a little on some false figures it came "by. There is mounting realisation in Britain, as elsewhere, that more votes are won in the kitchen that on the stock exchange. Talk of balance of trade, invisible exports and so on was kept short compared to than concerning price tags on grocers’ shelves.

The Empire was endorsed as a pretty good thing by both, parties, and there the matter rested. One gathered that the Tories had. always proclaimed their great faith in the Empire and done nothing about it, while the Socialists habitually renounced the very thought, and were now busily growing peanuts in Tanganyka. No one seemed to think it odd for the Tories to bedeck their rostrums with the flags of Socialist Australia and New Zealand. On the form as I saw it, the Socialist party is in fitter campaigning condition than the Tories for the 1950 battle.

And the British political public is • quietly more aware and alert than its New Zealand counterpart.