THE THREE-PARTY SYSTEM

Hokitika Guardian, 29 November 1928, Page 2

THE THREE-PARTY SYSTEM

(Otago Daily Times)

As in New Zealand, so also in Great Britain, the three-party system has introduced into general politics an element of uncertainty that is liable to bring confusion in its train, The general election at Home will take place in June next. The constituency will 'oc enlarged to the extent of about live millions by the inclusion of what has been called “the flapper vote,” concerning the destination of which the party organisers, however hopeful they may bee, must entertain some doubt. The Conservative Party is overwhelmingly and un wholesomely strong in the present Parliament. It is generally agreed that it will lose a large number of seats. The estimates as to the measure of the losses that it will sustain vary considerably.

Members of the Conservative Party themselves reckon that the strength of the party may be diminished in the new House of Commons by as many as eighty. Opponents of the Government have expressed the opinion that the Conservative losses may be as great as 150 seats. In the one case, if the Conservative estimate is approximately correct, the Government will be maintained in office with a compact majority that will bo more manageable than that which supports Mr Baldwin at the present time. If, on the other hand, the Conservatives lose 150 seats they will- not form a majority of the House, for they will be reduced to a group of about 250 members.

It is agreed that the Labour Party will gain heavily at ‘the polls. Necessarily, the bulk of the seats which it wins will he taken from the Conservatives, since the Liberals are a mere handful in the present Parliament. According to one dispassionate analyst of the political situation at Home, no cool judge puts the numbers of the Labour Party at less than 250 in the new House of Commons, and it has been suggested that they might even be 270 or 280. At the highest of these figures, however, they would not constitute a majority of the House. In these circumstances the balance of power will be held by the Liberals. This seems to be the contingency which Mr Lloyd George hopes to see arise. What then? What will the Li-berals , do if they actually hold the balance ol

power? This was the question pointedly put to them by Mr Baldwin in « speech at the conference of the Conservative Party last month. A week later Mr Lloyd George replied to this challenge with a statement as to what the Liberals would not do: “Let me say once and for all we shall decidedly and emphatically decline to contemplate the possibility of a repetition of the experiment of 1024, which proved so disastrous”—the experiment having been that of maintaining the labour Government, a minority Government, in office for a period of nine months. This, however, is not very illuminating. If neither the- Conservative Party nor the Labour Party has a minority, the Lil>erals, bolding the balance of power, must either assist one or the other to remain in office, or else, in default of some “accommodation” between two of the parties, there must be another appeal to the country.

Mr Llovd George holds, however, that there is a vast and fertile terri-

tory common to men of progressive minds in all parties which they can agree to cultivate together without abandoning any of the principles and ideals they cherish. But in those circumstances. he adds, the conditions of co-operation and understanding must he honourable to all and humiliating to none.

Mr Philip Snowden, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government, agrees with Mr Lloyd

George that in the event of no party having a majority some understanding would have to be reached between the two or three parties in the House of Commons.

That seems, indeed, to be a practical arid commonsense view to take. AA c have quoted it because it must bo apparent to tbe public that a parallel exists between tbe political conditions in tbe Mother Country and those in New Zealand and because it should also be apparent that the way of escape from the position of confusion created by the operation of the threeparty system in the Dominion lies along the lino of a fusion ol the parties that have most in common between them. Tt will ho observed that tbe United Party, at its caucus on Thursday night, decided that it would not entertain any proposal for a coalition. Its decision on the point is somewhat premature. The time is not at present ripe for. any party fusion. It will inevitably present itself sooner or later during the Parliament, and possibly sooner rather Chau later.