Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-10-19

tails Which nave current Ndlue-
In the present House of Commons.
with SIS members, the Tories have
cS1, Labor 1872 and the Liberals 15S.
the remaining eight seats being scat
tered among smaller groups. AS
consequence, it is necessary for any
: party to win the election to capture
at least 30S seats.
Now, in point of fact, there is no
present prospect that any party will
be thus fortunate, although it is clear
in any event only the Tory party
might perform this feat. In the pre-
ceding House of Commons the Con-
servatives had moro than $40 seats,
Labor lSS and the two factions of the
Liberal party, that headed by Mr..
-Asquth and that by Lloyd George.
counted III. Thus in the election
which brought Labor to power the
Tories lost upward of so seats.
Put Over Coalition.
Now the odd circumstance was that
In the last election. which cost the
Tories so much, there was no consid-
cradle accession of votes To the win
ming party. Both the Labor and Lib
Cral parties gained a certain number
OF votes, but nothing to compare with
their gain in seats. The reason was
very simple. Whereas Labor and the
Liberals had fought each other in
many constituencies in 1922, in 1928
they more or less divided the field
and pooled their votes, the Liberals
running man where the Liberal
party was stronger than Labor, and
vice versa.
The reason for this combination lay
in the fact that Stanley Baldwin had
elected to so before the people on
the issue of protection. which was
equally abhorrent to Liberal and La
borite. As a consequence. when this
Tories, although having lost upward
of so seats. came back to the House
of Commons with the largest number
of seats, G5 more than the Labor
party. which wac next, there was no
question of Baldwin continuing, be-
cause he had been beaten on the
tariff issue, and the Liberals COM
bined with Labor to turn the Tories
out.
Bitterness Has Arisen.
The situation is quite different this
time, and there is profound bitterness
between the Labor and Liberal par
ties. Thus We are bound to see
repetition of the 1892 situation in
many districts-that is, a three cor
nered fight, which must inure to the
advantage of the Tories. But what
is even more likely is that after cleo
ton, if the Tories still lack a ma
jority. at least one faction of the
parry, lhdl Htddtu DN IloS U
George, viii propose new coalition
and offer the necessary votes in re-
turn for a share of the offices
This was what Lloyd George hoped
for in 1922, when he was thrown out
of office a result of the revolt of
the Tories in the famous Carlton Club
meeting and coalition was destroyed.
But instead Bonar Law came to power
with good. safe Tory majority,
which he kept until i'll health forced
him to resign, and Stanley Baldwin
promptly abolished by the foolish
tariff election. AS it stands, there is
no hope of a Liberal party victory,
and there is no welcome waiting for
Lloyd George in Labor ranks, for La
Dor has leader at least as able and
an abiding diStrust of George.
Split Is Possible.
But a coalition government with
George in it would be repugnant to
majority of the Tory party, which has
accepted the return of Winston
Churchill with anything but enthusi-
asm. Indeed, any such venture might
lead to split in Tory ranks. and pre-
cisely this has been the objective of
Lloyd George ever since the close of
the war. His aim has been to form a
new party by drawing to himself the
more liberal Tories and the more
conservative Liberals, and thus form
ing party of the center.
If the Tories come back with a
majority of their own, then Georges
goose is cooked" If Labor gets a
majority of its own the situation is
the same. If no one gets a ma
jority, then Lloyd Georges effort to
form coalition government by lead
ing over Liberals to the Tories will
be infallibly balanced by migra-
ton of other Liberals to Labor, head
ed not impossibly by Sir John Simon.
Liberal, Upset Labor.
The underlying cause of the pres
ent upset of the Labor government
is the growing Impotence of the Lib
erals, who supplied Macdonald with
the votes which kept him in power
got nothing in return and were con-
fronted by the fact that, contrary to
their hopes, Labor was not making
a mess of things, and that in foreign
policy Macdonald was achieving a
success which surpassed anything in
the record of his immediate prede-
cessors, to say the least.
Thus Liberal prospects were de-
Ginning, while by supporting Labor
and thus giving it chance to sue
coed the Liberals were in some
fashion becoming the accomplices of
their own ruin. On the other hand,
there was and is no installing the
fact that the settled opinion of Brit
ish observers is that the Liberals
will almost certainly lose many seats
at the new election From the mo-
ment that Macdonald took Office nine
months ago the Liberals have been
faced with the dilemma: Should they
turn Macdonald out and lose many
seats in the new election or should
they keep Macdonald in and see La
Dor by it's success in power automati-
cally, if slowly, destroy the Liberal
party?
Will Regain Freedom.
Thus the election comes down to
desperate attempt of the Liberals,
spurrea on by Lloyd George, for
whom MacDonald's success with the
London conference and more recently
at Geneva have been terribly bitter
incidents, to escape from their fatal
situation. To this situation they
came when they decided to give La
Dor the necessary votes to form
government. They have been since
that lime captives. They will now
resume their freedom. but at a cost
which may IN the event seem excess
sive.
The row over the Campbell case.
which precipiteted the downfall of the
Labor government, was, as the vet
Gran "Tay Pay O'Connor remarked.
:, tempest in a teapot So doubtful
were the Liberals of the wisdom of
pressing things that even at the last
moment they gave Labox a chance to
escape, by voting down the Tory mo-
ton of censure and asking merely
for the appointment of an investigat-
ing commission.
But this escape could only have
been a reprteye for the debate on the