The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1929 A CLASH OF PARTIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 623, 27 March 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1929 A CLASH OF PARTIES

THE present Parliament of Great Britain is on its last legs and tottering to early dissolution. Because of that fact and prospect real Parliamentary work has given way to party recrimination and the usual propaganda for the forthcoming general election. Indeed, even the friendliest and most courteous critics of Parliament have been compelled to confess in sorrow that the chief impression one sustains as a result of this session’s debates in the House of Commons is of an organised and gigantic waste of time. The British electorate is beginning to realise that, after all the fuss made by the Government and members of Parliament, the vital details of legislation are settled by civil servants and outside experts, and not by the Legislature at all. A dull fire is being poked into a fierce glow, however, by the advent of another electoral test. Rival parties are perturbed at the approach of a record poll. An additional five millions of young women, stupidly described as “flappers,” have secured the belated right to vote, and if they add a shrill protest to the national chorus of grievances against politicians their influence on the party issues may entitle them to he hailed as the “floppers.” Though the three parties in the futile House of Commons are still some distance from the battlefield, the campaign has already begun, with many snipers, as usual, well to the fore in deadly action. All the leaders are prominent targets for attack, but as they are of the elusive type of moving target, they are hot easily hit. It may be noted as a piquant fact and possibly as a significant portent that Mr. Lloyd George, so far, is the centre of attack. He has been called in turn “an active wasp,” also “a jackanapes” and (a lady’s epithet) that social pest, “a gate crasher.” Since the great little Welshman has been nurtured on hard names, it is not likely that he will wilt under a shower of that sort of political abuse. One of the many charms of the man is his genial readiness to allow friend or foe to call him anything they like on the clear understanding that he, too, will enjoy the same freedom. The Conservatives, who have had a feast of Parliamentary power since October, 1924, are now pictured as staring at the moving finger writing their doom on the wall. It is difficult to believe that disaster to the party is approaching. Its majority in the House still is a clear 200. Certainly, the Conservatives have fared badly in recent by-elections, but surely not severely enough to justify Mr. George’s assertion that “the Tories are discredited beyond repair.” After the 1924 General Election the state of the parties in a House of 615 members was: Conservatives 413, Labour 151, Liberals 40, Independents 5, Constitution•alists 6. In ordinary circumstances the distant onlooker would he tempted to declare that a smashing defeat of the Government party in May next is not over-apparent. But the circumstances have become extraordinary and observers on the spot now are confident that the Tories’ majority will melt like snow in springtime on Sussex eaves. The country has become sick and tired of amiable talk without action. The Government is anything hut popular. Its own friends cannot find much that is good in its work to defend it against a strong demand for its dismissal. Opponents have no dearth of evidence to prove that the Baldwin regime has failed to extricate the country from its worst difficulties. Of course, the severest critics frankly admit that about Mr. Baldwin and his colleagues “there is nothing diabolical.” They are anything but brutal champions of Capitalism pledged to oppress the working classes. Simply “they are for the most part kindly, honest and wellmeaning men, but not qualified to carry out with reasonable efficiency the responsible duties which fate has thrust upon them.” New Zealanders have had something of the same experience, and may sympathise with the British electorate. But if the Prime Minister with pipe and his do-nothing colleagues have to go, which of the other parties is likely to gain power? Labour doubtless will increase its strength, but only super-optimists would expect it to gain a clear-cut majority. The Liberal remnant does not possess any hope of beating its rival parties, but it is confident of doubling its representation in Parliament, thus securing the balance of power. This prospect is so vivid that Libei-al journals seriously are discussing the necessity of a Liberal-Labour alliance. There is the old talk about there being little difference between Moderate Labour and courageous Liberalism. Meanwhile, the parties are marching to battle.