BRITISH POLITICS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 December 1928, Page 2

BRITISH POLITICS

GENERAL ELECTION PREPARATIONS.

Within the next fortnight all the great parties will have held their annual conferences, and the plans of campaign ifor the election will be formulated (wrote the London correspondent of the (Melbourne Argus on September ‘27). At the moment the Liberals have 31 members of Parliament and 352 adopted candidates, a very fair proportion of the 500 candidates whom Mr Lloyd George proposes to run at the general election. Mr Lloyd George is well supplied with funds, thanks to his investment in newspaper shares. The unlucky party is Labour'. When the general election lighting fund was audited at the end of the current financial year the amount in credit was only €155. A trilling sum has been added since. The total available when the party leaders meet their supporters will he less than £2OO. Attempts will be made to raise the necessary funds, the ideal being a “Bid for Power Fund ” of £IOO,OOO. Noil's this all. The party fund, to cover the directional and organising expenses of the Labour Party, ended last year with a debit which made a loan of £SOOO essential. Affiliation fees have fallen to an alarming extent, largely due to the new regulations regarding political payments from trade union members. Tile Labour Party already has 457 constituencies provided with candidates, including the 158 sitting members. It will be interesting to see whether any pact between Liberal and Labour is possible. Labour professes to look with distaste upon any arrangement of the kind, hut. unofficial parleys have been in progress he!ween the two sections of the Opposition. Meanwhile, Air Baldwin is making a vigorous attempt to solve the unemployment problem, which has hung over politics like a miasma for the last seven years. Surplus miners are being transferred from derelict areas. A per_ sonal canvass by officers of tbe Ministry of Labour has been made, with a view to ’ discovering possihilitiws of employment of miners who have been deprived permanently of employment in that the mines in which they were working will not he reopened. The first three weeks of effort after Mr Baldwin issued his | appeal to the masters of industry reI suited in 1000 miners being drafted into new employment. It is estimated that every week 120.000 labour engagements are made in England, Scotland,

and Wales. If a fair proportion ol these jobs are given to unemployed miners the problem will become less urgent, though it can only be solved by a general revival of overseas trade.