DIVIDED CAMP

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 597, 25 February 1929, Page 9

DIVIDED CAMP

Conservatives Say Home Secretary Has Lost Them Thousands of Votes MORE CABINET TROUBLE (United I*.A. — By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian, and ST.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Received 9 a.m. LONDON, Sunday. CONTRASTING the Duke of Montrose's remark at Edinburgh, that the Scots have a right to manage their own domestic affairs, with the Home Secretary's statement at Oxford that people must realise that the old days of every man s right to do as he likes with his own will not work in the twentieth century, the “Star" declares that Conservative Commoners resent this, and assert that it will mean thousands of votes being lost to the Conservatives in the coming election.

THESE Conservatives say that Sir “*■ William Joynson-Hicks is championing bureaucratic control, which hitherto has been advocated only by the Socialists. It is feared that numerous Government supporters will transfer their allegiance to the Liberals. The speech also entails more Cabinet trouble. Owing to ill-health Mr. Roy Wilson, Conservative member of the House of Commons for the Lichfield Division of Staffordshire, will not seek re-elec-tion. Mr. Wilson won the seat at the last general election by a majority of 2,076 votes over his Labour opponent, Mr. Frank Hodges, who had won the seat at the election in 1923, when he was general secretary of the Miners’ Federation. “ORDER OF OSTRICHES’* Mr. ,T. L. Garvin, editor of “The Observer,” announces that in view of the coming election he intends to examine the political situation in a series of detached and good-humoured articles. He sums up in the first one as follows: — The Government and its party seem to have resolved themselves unanimously into a “noble order of ostriches.” Whether the Ministers, be-

tween now and the election, can induce a bored nation to love them more is a matter to be examined later. It is plain at present that whether or not Mr. Baldwin and his colleagues snatch a bare working majority out of the three-cornered gamble, the Parliamentary strength of Conservatism proper is quite certain to be vastly diminished. SOCIALISTS STRONGER

Secondly, the Socialists will be far stronger in the next House of Commons than ever before. Thirdly, the Liberals will be disappointed at their own numbers. They will have to realise acutely that though there may be three parties there are only two lobbies. Fourthly, Ministers will find it useless to dwell on the past, whether by reciting their own achievements or by relating the delinquencies of the Opposition parties. What does the Government propose for the next four Upon the answer to that all may turn. Britain is concerned about the future and nothing else. "When Mr. Churchill and his colleagues talk about the ancient history of the general strike they waste their breath. Heaven help them on that dead tack. They might as well read the Riot Act to a deserted village.