Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1930. THE CURSE OF PARTY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 125, 24 November 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1930. THE CURSE OF PARTY

With the Prime Minister's assurance of "the best will, not only of the Government but of the British Parliament," the Indian Round Table Conference has gone.into committee, and personally he appears to be prepared to let India have whatever the Conference may choose to ask. .With the possible exception of the problem which confronted the Asquith Government in July and August, 1914, there has been none in our time comparable in importance to that with which the Conference will come to grips this week, and none which will more imperatively demand the combination of a strong Government, a' united Parliament, and a united nation. But it is as the representative of a minority Government that Mr. Mac Donald has presided at the Indian Conference, and--just as the Conference approaches the crux of its task the position of the Government is rendered more precarious than ever by a dramatic split in its own party. In recent by-elections the advantage which the Conservatives have gained from the failure of the Government unemployment policy and the swing of the pendu-lum against Free Trade has been discounted by the unofficial Conservative candidates put up by the Empire Crusaders; but in East Renfrew the Government is suffering in the same way from the revolt of its own Left Wing, and whatever may be the-result in the constituency, the effect upon its Parliamentary position is bound to be very serious, and may prove fatal. The tactics of Labour's Left Wing in East Renfrew are startling, not merely because they involve an open breach with the Government, to which its serious discontents have not hitherto prevented at from giving a general support, but because the force which it is sending into the fight will expose the Government to the serious risk of defeat in the House. The General Election gave Labour a majority of 27, over the Conservatives, with 59 Liberals holding the balance of power. As a rule the Liberals have preferred to support the Labour Government, but on the 9th July their .amendment to the Finance Bill was only rejected by a majority of two. It is true that at the beginning of this month the Government had a majority of 31 against the Conservative amendment to the Address-in-Reply,but the letter from Sir John Simon, which was published at the same time is likely to harden up the Liberals against Mr. Lloyd George's policy of co-operating with the Government. The absence of the twenty stalwarts whom Sir Oswald Mosley is expected to take with him to East Renfrew will therefore leave the Government in a very unenviable position. While the campaign lasts a defeat in the House may vjme from any quarter at any time, and cooperation with the insurgents will become more difficult than ever after their return.

The anomaly of the position is indicated by the problem of pairing. As Sir Oswald and his team will be fighting against the Opposition they cannot ask for pairs from either qi the Opposition parties, and to pair with the Government would he useless, even if it were not made impossible by their opposition to the Government candidate also. Another interesting point is the probable effect of this adventure upon the future of the Labour Party. It seems hardly possible &at, whether it wins or loses, the expeditionary force will return from this open rebellion to submit to the jurisdiction of the Government whips, or that they will be given the chance of so doing. Though the Conservatives have had an abundance of similar trouble from the Empire Crusaders, the question has not arisen there, since the leaders of that movement are all outside the House of Commons, and there has been no public challenge of Mr. Baldwin's leadership inside the House. The action of Labour's Left Wing is therefore without a precedent, but it seems inevitable that the independence which it has now asserted must become permanent, and that it will take its *position both in the House and at the future elections, perhaps under the colours of the 1.L.P., as a separate party. The confusion which the warfare of three parties has introduced into British politics will in that case be worse confounded by the ' creation of a fourth. If Mr, Baldwin'cannot make terms with Lord Beaverbrook's Crusaders there will be a fifth, and for the purposes of the Whitechapel election there may even be a sixth! There, is, we are told, "a huge Jewish vote" in that constituency. The injustice with which the Government is supposed to have treated the Zionists in Palestine is said to be uppermost. Lord Melchett has girded on his sword, sounded1 his trumpet in Zion, and informed the faithful "that there is an opportunity to strike a blow at the Government."' Where no counsel is, says the- wise man, .the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. It is, however, possible to have too much of a good thing, and in the present multitude of consellors and claimants, of parties and factions, of issues and cries, there is small promise of security for the commerce and industry of Britain, for her un-

employment problem, or for the good government of India. Faith in Britain's star makes it possible to hope that she will find her way through the tangle, but it is not easy to see how. At the bottom of Britain's present troubles, as of those of other nations, there are, of course, world-wide causes which are beyond human control, but if in measures of alleviation she has not given the world the lead which her record of political wisdom entitled one to expect, the explanation seems in large measure to be that with the times political conditions have changed, and the precedents of the two-party system under which she scored her great successes have not been adapted to the new problem presented by the arrival of a third party. And, with that problem stijl unsolved, fresh complications are now threatened by the further subdivision of existing parties. Britain's 2,000,000 of unemployed, representing a disaster comparable to that of a great war, might have been expected to enforce the same kind of national unity that a great war produces. But though the nation was ready for it the politicians were not, and party feuds have prevented the pooling of the resources of statesmanship as they were pooled under the stress of war. With a nation divided against itself in the presence of such a calamity, one is tempted to say that party spirit is the root of all political evil.