General Election Near

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 925, 19 March 1930, Page 9

General Election Near

LABOUR PARTY PREPARING Attack on Food-Taxes LIBERALS DISLIKE EARLY CONTEST THERE is talk of an early General Election in Great Britain. ■where the office of the Labour Party is reported to be feverishly busy issuing pamphlets attacking food taxes. The Liberals, it is stated, would prefer to delay a plebiscite until electoral reform has been effected.

United B.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Reed. 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Tuesday. The “Daily Mail" says preparations for an early General Election are well advanced at the Labour Party offices, where orders have

been given for 30,000,000 envelopes. Plans are being made to fight against food taxes, on which leaflets are being prepared. It is believed the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, . intends that the election

shall be early in , the summer, after the Budget debate. The period available for a General Election will be limited by Ihe Imperial Conference and the Indian Conferences in the autumn. The Liberals would prefer to await the report of the Speaker’s Conference on electoral reform, but the majority of members of the House of Commons are of opinion that the clash will come earlier than this. LIBERALS WILL NOT FORCE CRISIS NAVAL PARLEY THE CAUSE Reed. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, Tues. At a meeting of the Liberal Party, with the leader, Mr. Lloyd George, presiding, it was unanimously decided that owing to the situation at the naval conference, it would not be in the national interest to create a crisis in the Commons. The Liberals will, therefore, abstain

from divisions and vital amendments on the Coal Mines Bill in its committee stage. reserving liberty of action on the report and third reading stages. This removes the danger of defeat of the Government on Thursday on the minimum coal prices amendment. STATE OF THE PARTIES The present British Parliament, the seventh administrative regime under the reign of King George V., was elected on May, 30. 1939. After the poll the state of the parties in the Commons was as outlined below. Comparative figures are given 'showing the position after the previous General Election in October. 1924. 1929. 3 924. Labour 287 150 Conservative .. .. 260 413 Liberal 59 40 Independents .... 9 4 Constitutionalists Irish Nationalist .. 1 The Labour Government., on the election figures, faces the House with a minority of 41 votes, but since the poll several by-elections have been held, resulting in victory for the Labour candidates. The franchise last year covered 28,850,000 voters, of whom 22,657,164 exercised their electoral privileges. The votes were distributed among the parties as shown below: ••Conservative .. « . 8.669.469 Labour 8,416,557 Liberal 5,260,050 Others 311,088 The cost of a General Election in Great Britain, calculated on the basis of the 1924 contest is over £ 900,000, each candidate spending on the average £645 on his campaign. A few days after the poll last year, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, Leader of the Conservative Party, resigned from his position as Prime Minister, and the present Labour Ministry, under Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, was then formed.