Evening Post. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1931. MR. MACDONALD HOLDS ON

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1931, Page 12

Evening Post. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1931. MR. MACDONALD HOLDS ON

Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, whom Mr. Churchill was deriding a few days ago as "the boneless'wonder," would certainly have been crushed by the appalling responsibilities of' his office long ago if he had not been able to rely upon an exceptional elasticity of,spirit to protect his physical weakness. Except in time of war no Prime Minister has been loaded with such a burden as that which Mr. Mac Donald has had to carry for more than eighteen months, but whereas even during the World War his predecessors were sustained by the knowledge that they had a, united nation behind them, Mr. Mac Donald took office as the leader of a minority party, and has since to a considerable extent lost the' confidence of that party without gaining the confidence of either of the others. Personally, he has neither shared nor encouraged the delusion of the Left Wing of his party regarding "Socialism in our time." Yet even he must have been grievously disappointed by the small progress that his Government has been able to make, and still more by its abject impotence in the presence of the world-wide calamity which is the chief cause of its marking time. The resentment of the nation and the chilling of its own party have been conclusively proved by reverses yin one Parliamentary election after another, and also in the Municipal Elections. The apathy of Labour voters is recognised by everybody as one of the principal causes of these , reverses, and this is what a Labour organ had to say about it, with special reference to the municipal results. . Reports from the important industrial towns in particular, said tho "New Leader," of the 7th November, are agreed in : laying stress upon this. Those reports confirm tho experience of the Parliamentary by-elections, and are an evidence of the extent of the disillusionment of large numbers -of Labour voters. If nothing is done to counteract it by the adoption of militant. Socialist policies by the Government—and of that there: is not even a faint hope—the next ■ General Elec-tion.-mil bring a smashing defeat for the Labour Party. Yet with all this evidence of weakening support and increasing hostility, with the colossal burden of unempldyment steadily growing, and with the 'heart-breaking monotony of economic depression only varied by perilous upheavals first in the coalfields and then in the cotton industry, Mr. Mac Donald refuses to throw «up the sponge. On the contrary, he goes almost serenely on, declines to be worried by a strong vote in the House of Commons which went the wrong way, explains once more the condition on which alone he will treat a hostile vote as fatal, declares with perfect assurance that such a vote will.Jiot be recorded this year or next,. and declares in general terms what he considers to be the duty of the Government in the meantime.

' Even those who believe that an immediate General Election would be a preferable risk to the continued calamity of a Labour regime, must surely have some admiration to spare for the spirit in which the Prime" Minister is standing up to'his job. Though- they may .endeavour to find the' chief'source of his tranquillity or assumed tranquillity in vanity or bluff or the love of power, they must surely admit that the tenacity with which he holds on is worthy of the best traditions of his 'office. If, except in regard to foreign and Indian affairs, Mr. Mac Donald's policy has been uniformly uninspiring, it cannot fairly be denied that there is some inspiration here. A fortnight ago the Government was decisively defeated (282 votes to 249) on a 'sectarian amendment to its Education Bill,-and after the Electoral Reform Bill has been disposed of there are about half-a-dozen clauses in its Trade Disputes Bill on which defeat is possible with far more serious consequences. But in the interval Mr. Mac Donald goes quietly about his business and pays as little heed to the jolt;'that he has just survived as to the one that may prove fatal next week. * Tho Government will not quit office, he told a meeting at Watford on Friday,; until it is defeated on.a vote of censure. That will not happen in 1931, though it might in 1934. A And in the address to the Parliamentary Labour Party reported yesterday Mr. Mac Donald sketched out a vague but comprehensive programme with no reference to the possibility of defeat, except in a sort of parenthetical way. The Government had decided, he said, that its duty was to continue to do its best to secure improvement in tho economic situation, and not to throw the country into the confusion of a General Election, unless circumstances compelled. Regarding unemployment^ Mr. Mac Donald declared that the aim of the Government was tho reconditioning of industry. •-, It is indeed an enviable quality or combination of qualities which enables Mr. Mac Donald to speak of these two vast problems—the economic depression and unemployment —as though they were new enterprises to be attacked in a hopeful spirit instead of being ihe very tilings which have made the most incessant r and most menacing demands on the

energies -of his Ministry and on which its failure has been most conspicuous. There is undoubtedly work enough in these problems to monopolise its energies during the next two or three years, but unless the Government has greater success than before the solution will at the end of that time be as far off as ever. The responsibilities of the next two or three months, which will include those of balancing the Budget, will be grave enough. In a judicial review of "England in the Great Depression," the December number of the "Round Table" says that during the last ten years Great Britain, like Australia, whom she properly though somewhat solfrighteously blames, has been steadily putting off the clay of reckoning. But the suggestion is made that the procrastination in which all Governments and parties have hitherto concurred cannot be much further prolonged, and that the critical moment may come in April. Those who Have offered Socialism, says the "Round Table," have socialised nothing much but cliarity; those who have offered Protection have spent their energies-in debating what they should protect and on wondering how far the country was with them. Scarcely ever in that period (1920-30) has the number' of registered unemployed fallen below 1,000,000. But procrastination must by now have had its day, for Great Britain is facing a winter with well over 2,000,000 unemployed, and the economic state of the nation is a question too urgent and too important to.be disregarded; analysis must come first, but action cannot be much longer delayed. Just when, or whether, Great Britain's troubles may come to deserve tho name ofcrisis is more doubtful. Many believe that the presentation of the Budgot next April will be the critical moment, since anything from £25,000,000 to £50,----0.00,000 will have to be found to cover the deficit of thei present year and the prospective deficit of jjthe next, and since any addition to direct taxation at this moment might break the camel's back.