The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1929. WOMEN HAVE THE LAST WORD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 663, 15 May 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1929. WOMEN HAVE THE LAST WORD

WOMEN, if they care to make the most of a unique opportunity, will have the last word in the British Parliamentary election campaign. In a national electorate of close on 28,000,000 voters nnder the new system of universal adult suffrage the feminine majority is two millions and a-quarter. A million pounds sterling will he spent by the State on giving the record British electorate ample opportunity to decide the fate of political parties. Three or four times that sum—nobody could guess the actual expenditure —will he expended by the candidates and their party organisations on political wooing and wheedling. In view of all these circumstances on a vaster scale than has ever been known before in Britain, would dare predict the result of the poll on the thirtieth day o± this month ? The most competent analysis of party strength and weakness, achievement and failure, and the best estimates oi the magnetic influences of personality and promises may be set at nought by the new body of shrill opinion and capricious fancy. Who knows the ways of women in politics ? Even though a, ma candidate might talk with a charm to inspire ™ the copse to a glorious response, there is always the possibi ty that a jarring kind of necktie or a slight cast m his questing eye may deprive him of many feminine votes. , All the party leaders, however, are equally confident oi winning the “flapper” vote hv the grace of tlieir manner and the allurements of their political promises Mr Baldwin the IPrme Minister, for instance, is extremely confident because he believes, or at least savs so, that “no leader ever had better ground for confidence.” This may he either the confidence oi Coueism or the courage of the hoy who whistles when passing m the shadow of a cemetery wall on a white road. . . It is said that ardent and reflective smokers can see visions, hut Mr. Baldwin apparently has not seen any ghostly writing on the wall. He has started his campaign with a vision oi victory, and is content to have it so because neither the Liberals nor the Labour Party can offer the country the stable and steadily progressive Government it needs and, presumably, obtains, though possibly does not enjoy, under the Conservative Party s regime. Everybody admits quite frankly that the present Government has been stable enough, hut then too many people, including some ot its own friends, are inclined to think that the stability has been closer to amiable stagnation than to steady progress. If as one of the Cecils has said, the election were to be decided according to the estimate of personalities, Mr. Baldwin will get the best of it. He is such a nice man, always amiable and ever ready, in a manner more disarmi ng,than American idealism, to say when somebody holds up an economic hedgehog: Why can’t you let it alone ?” That is all very well, hut when a country becomes overrun with political hedgehogs the people naturally want a different answer. If not Mr. Baldwin as the admmistrative leader of a politically restive nation, which of the two other leading statesmen should be called upon to lead? Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Ramsay MacDonald? A volatile Welshman or a dour and dreamy Scot? Here, again, no one at a distance and none in the centre of the stern battle, can or dare answer with anything like reasonable certainty. The Liberal Leader is in his best “Excelsior” mood and, like our own great Liberal, puts his faith and political future on the power of borrowed money. And he is as nimble as ever and still better than his clever daughter at making phrases keener than the swords of Damascus. But also (and this will he a factor in the final choice) lie still is as difficult to hold as a bagful of eels. The Labour Leader has become so canny nowadays that many observers are beginning to look upon him as a spent force. He, too, is very confident of success, and his chance of a return to power may not he despised. After all, however, the last word must he given to the women. It is their day at last.