ELECTIONS IN BRITAIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 661, 13 May 1929, Page 1

ELECTIONS IN BRITAIN

Labour Has Mixed Flock EARL’S DAUGHTER TO STAND Lists Contain Other Surprises (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press AssociationJ (United Service) Received 9 a.m. LONDON, Sunday. THE lists of candidates for the British General Election on May 30 afford evidence of a revolution in polities, even within a decade. Women provide most of the surprises.

Miss Jessie Stephen (Labour, Portsmouth) was till a few years ago a domestic. She is now a good speaker, and unflinchingly has addressed meetings of 2,000 people. She plays a good game of billiards and writes able, trenchant articles. Other Labourites are: Miss Picton Turbervill, whose ancestors came over with the Conqueror. Lady Clare Annesley, daughter of the seventh Earl. She gave up foxhunting to propagate Socialism. Miss Monica Whately, a former policewoman. Among the Liberals are: Miss Nancy Parnell, a school teacher, niece of the famous Charles Stewart Parnell. Mrs. Hoffman, an American now naturalised in Britain. She claims descent from Anne Boleyn. Wealthy young Conservatives fighting seats in the East End of London include the Hon. Evan Morgan, artist and poet, heir of Lord Tredegar, who will be one of the richest men in the country. He is tackling Limehouse. Lord Knebworth is contesting Shoreditch, and Sir Tresham Lever the South Hackney seat. A son of the Minister of Agriculture (the Right Hon. Walter E. Guinuess) is fighting Mr. Harry Gosling (Labour) for the Whitechapel seat. Conservative -working men include Mr. Gwilym Rowlands and Mr. Alfred Coates, a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Labour’s increasing number of unorthodox candidates include Sir John Maynard, K.C.1.E., C. 5.1., a former Minister of Finance of the Punjab, Mr. John Strachey, son of the former editor of “The Spectator,” Mr. Louis Fenn, a son of Bishop Fenn, the Rev. Gordon Lang, a Nonconformist minister and cousin of the Primate, Mr. Derwent Hall Caine, son of the novelist. The Liberals include Mr. Beckett Williams, the distinguished young composer, and Mr. Compton Mackenzie, the novelist. BALDWIN’S CHARGE The Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin, inaugurated the Conservatives’ election campaign with an address to 10,000 people in the Albert Hall. He said the great fight was beginning on the third anniversary of the general strike.

The Leader of the Labour Party. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, now disowned that upheaval, but he forgot that it was the direct and logical outcome of the Labour Party's propaganda of violence. Those who preached that doctrine sowed the wind and the nation reaped the whirlwind. They challenged law and order and the Government of the country, and thus headed straight for anarchy and despotism. However, an overwhelming mass of the people of Britain stood behind the present Government, whose policy tn the past two years hati been so successful that oven the Socialists’ leaders now preached the doctrine of moderation. Behind those leaders, however, there still stood people who believed in revolutionary methods. Mr. Baldwin said he did not fear the Liberals, because brains, money and a dynamic leader were of no avail unless soul and life could be breathed into the dry bones of Liberalism. CONSERVATIVE ACHIEVEMENT Proceeding, Mr. Baldwin enumerated the steps the Government had taken in the direction of social reform and increased employment. He said it was prepared to put Its hands to the plough again with the same energy. As illustrating the nation's recovery since 192-1, the Prime Minister said wholesale prices had fallen more than 15 points and the cost of living IS points. The real value of wages, therefore, had risen. The savings of small investors had increased by £170,000,000. Shipbuilding was improving and the iron and steel industry was in a better position. Even the coal trade was showing a. considerable improvement. The more men who worked the more coal they sectired.

ASSISTING DOMINIONS In the course of an election address issued in the form of a pamphlet. Mr. Baldwin lays stress upon the means of assisting the Dominions by co-operation. He discussed the expansion and value of Imperial preference, which, since 1924, had been stabilised and extended with excellent results. The Empire today was by far the best market. It bought nearly as much British manufactures as all the foreign countries together. The Liberals and Socialists, by their actions in 1924 and their declarations since then, had shown determined hostility to the whole idea of preference. The Conservatives, on the contrary, had demonstrated its great possibilities. Subject to his pledge not to impose protection taxation on food, they would continue to promote preference as an essential part of their policy of Imperial development. Mr. MacDonald, speaking at Seaham, said that if the present Government were returned to Downing Street, it would straight away “get into political pyjamas and stay there for the next five years.”