BRITISH CONSERVATIVES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 43, 19 January 1938, Page 2

BRITISH CONSERVATIVES.

REVIVALIST CAMPAIGN. LONDON, Dec. 15. Impatient of what they consider to be methods smacking of masquerade, vigorous and optimistic Conservatives of London have commenced a revival-, ist campaign for the party in the metropolitan area. The plan is to key up the organisation in the municipal boroughs as well as the Parliamentary constituencies, to contest all elections frankly as Conservatives, and not be content with using the party organisation to support municipal reformers or ratepayers’ representatives or others who seem to fear using the name of Conservative. A great preponderance of Conservative successes in the by-elections of recent months and the non-success, in the metropolis at least, of the “by-pro-duct” parties has convinced many members of the party that anything in the way of camouflage is useless, if not injurious. Therefore, the London Conservatives have announced that their light shall not be hidden under a bushel,"but that their gospellers shall go out among the people, with speech for speech and meeting for meeting against the Socialists, to regain the ground which the greater activity of their opponents has won from them. The term “Conservative” in this country does not carry any political reproach. It is many years since Bernard Shaw tried to destroy the Conservative hold on the people with a taunt (“That hideous anomaly of modern times, the Conservative working man”). Manv a working man, listening to the glowing promises of,Socialism, takes the view that he is invited to get rid of a boss and accept a. commissar. Being English, he is a cautious fellow. Despite Mr Shaw’s vitality and longevity, it. seems fated that he is to bequeath his task to other hands. It is just one more conflict of ideologies (to use the pet word of the moment), and it will be .interesting to see how long England will continue to prefer adaptation to revolution. However it may go, one reels thankfully that she will continue to revolve on her own “axis,” instead of sticking it out into other countries and creating a vision of the map of Europe all stirred round and round like a Christinas pudding.