Evening star., 1923-12-30
ny FRANCIS j. WAHLEN.
Former London Editor of the Maasbode
Of Rotterdam.

~ ING out old shapes of fou
H Ring out. the narrowing lust
in Of gold.
Il \ Ring out the thousand years
! Ring in the thousand years OF
| Peace.
Ring in the valiant men and free,
| The larger heart. the kindlier hand
Ring out the darkness of the land
Ring in the Christ that Is to be.
Thus sang Tennyson's 'Tn Memo
RAM" And we cannot find any
nobler, more symbolic words at the END
Of this year, which also marks unmis-
takably the end of centuries-old po.
litfcal situation in the government of the
British people, than in these verses OF
the great Victorian poet. Because, when
In the first weeks Of 1924, the British
parliament will once more foregather al
Westminster, the very last perhaps OF
the vestiges of that great period OF
British contemporary history. the Vic
torian era, illuminated forever by such
names as Peel and Russell, Gladstone
and DisraeIi, will have definitely disap-
peared. Gone, because even the two
1
gone; If not forever, certainly for many
a decade to come.
Third Party Starts to Grow.
Since the Irish party left Westmin-
ster for Dublin. December, 1918. there
had been q certain breathing space for
the two-party system Of the house OF
commons. Adler pens than mine should
tell of the extraordinary influence on
the two-party system the Irish Bench
under such admirable leaders as Par
nall and John Redmond, has been able
to bring to bear upon the political
cross purposes Of the traditional two
great parties Of the British parliament
the wings and the tories. And whilst
these dauntless sons Of Erin were win
ming their 1ong-fought- for victory for
party was growing into maturity!
| That new party may now be the
governmental labor party!
Let me tell you something that
happened just a hundred years ago
ing in December. 1923, the lord may
or's court, at the London Mansion
House, was hilariousl- astonished
because "a radical appeared before
Of the following day. And the dig
nifled City journal described closely
the costume of that man. Wadding-
ton. Not only was the radicals shirt
clean. 1t Is stated that his cravat
was clean; it is implied that his very
radical hattie white hat, which
Henry Hunt had recently made a
badge of political opinion-it was a
Ihigh-crowned hat, such as would be-
come swell of the first water. His
coat was cut in the first style of
fashion His nersonal appearance
was composed.
Cause of Transformation.
And what had caused the trans
formation of a radical into such a
respectable person? He was by no
means shy, we read, in avowing the
cause of the surprising metamorpho-
sis. He had given up radicalism as
a propaganda and entered into re-
| spectacle employment. Just for a
handful OF silver he underwent this
complete outward change-a clean
shirt and a coat in the first style of
| fashion! Waddington must have been
a notorious person in his day, though
1 his memory has faded among that of
| the lost leaders. In fact. he de-
clined, politically, upon respectable
an employer! His business at the
| Mansion House Court was to prose-
| cute a beadle for assaulting two of
his hands. Whatever the word rad
! icar' may have meant to the writer
; Of the account, the story rouses some
little doubt about the depth of Wad-
! dington's conversion. His may have
| been only the radicalism of a Simon
| Tappertit of Dickens "Barnaby
Rudge:" Said he: "You-meet in me.
! man, not slave but the
leader Of a great people a
healer Of the wounds of his unhappy
country ."
The Victorian Era.
That was the mild sarcasm with
| which even the very name OF radi-
| calism was ridiculed hundred years
ago. Then came the Victorian era,
, the immense prosperity of industri-
| alism with the halcyon days of the
| liberal thought and the two-parties
,system-until the great war. And
now, since the election of December
| 6, 1928, is the strength of the three
parties in the house of commons as
follows: Conservatives. 256; labor, 1se;
liberals (reunited). 1853: others, s.
4 why uOI d idDOT government
| asked the Daily Herald, the official
| organ of the labor-socialist party,
| the day after the result of the Brit
| ish elections were known. Never,
| since the granting OF the Magma
! Charta, nearly 700 years ago. has
chance OF being posed by any one in
| the parliament of Westminster. OF
course. labor, although impatient.
| could only govern by compromise, If
not with the cooperation, between
| the liberals and labor men in the
| ment being as yet a fact, many seem
to think that the criticisms against
! Premier Baldwin for not resigning
| without meeting parliament are mis-
| taken. The suggestion Is made that
\ the British prime minister has fol-
! lowed the true constitutional course
for representative government in
waiting for the verdict of the house
| Of commons-through which only the
] nation speaks and declares Its will.
Good In Three Parties.
AS .. matter of fact, one excellent
result Of the late general elections
will be to restore to the house of
commons something of the author
ity 1t has lost in recent years, par
| ticularly since the war cabinets. Gov
| ernments have grown SO accustomed
to having an obedient party-majority
behind them that they have got into
| the habit of thinking that the house
| of commons has nothing to do but to
choose q government and then go to
sleep, only to wake up to vote sup
plies. 1t will be no bad result of
| q present tri-partite division Of
| forces that, whatever governments
! there may be during this parliament.
they will be brought to realize the
dependency OF all their measures
l ,,non a hoi,se of commons majority