Evening star., 1924-06-22
PEOPLE SWINGING AWAY
FROM CONSERVATIVES
European Countries, Notably England
and France, Now Led by
Liberal Political Elements.


mood of victory with the pledge to
make Germany pay and to get for
France both security and reparations.
The bloc National, which dominated
the new chamber presently turned to
Poincare to express its purpose just
as the Tories turned first to A. Bonar
Law and then to Stanley Baldwin,
both die -hards" of the Tory right.
Rise of Labor Significant.
The British house of commons,
which was chosen in 1922, was not as
Overwhelmingly conservative as that
of the Khaki election four years be-
fore. But the Tories had a safe ma
jority of around seventy, and the
Liberals, their traditional rivals. had
been hopelessly divided by the Lloyd
George-Asquith feud. Perhaps the
single significant sign of the coming
change in popular opinion was the
rise of Labor to the rank of official
opposition, but even this development
could be ascribed, after all, to the
split in the Liberal ranks. Thus the
1922 election was a clear victory for
reaction.
Fourteen months later, however
the change was complete, Stanley
Baldwin, the new premier, confident
that the public was still with his
party, ventured to raise the issue of
protection and the result was the de-
cisive defeat of the Tories, the strik-
ing gains of the Labor party. despite
the fact that the Liberals were now
nominally reunited and Asquith and
Lloyd George had appeared on the
same platform. And the upshot of
the British election of last December
was the selection of Ramsay Mac
Donald as prime minister.
During the war, Macdonald had
been a consistent pacifist. He had
narrowly escaped death at the hands
of at least one mob, because of his
anti-war declarations, public scorn
had gone to the length of expressing
itself in the expulsion of Macdonald
from the golf club of his native Los
siemouth hamlet in Scotland He had
been denounced as defeatist he had
been the target of all patriotic elo-
quence. If the British public desired
to give some sign of the extent to
which il had repudiated war senti-
ments, there was no single step it
could take, more expressive than the
selection OF Macdonald, and he was
selected.
The cabinet which took ONCE last
January, headed by Macdonald, was
~
was in office when the world war
broke, it was far more so, its radical
ism was vastly more extreme than
that of Lloyd George, that is the
Lloyd George of 1913-1s14, and it was
headed by a practicing pacifst into
the bargain. a man who had opposed
the war and never abated one slight
apoligized, never compromised, never
even sought to explain away his war
time record. All he had don was to
sit still, but not silent, and wait for
his country to come to him, and it
came.
Changes in France.
In France things again moved more
slowly. The new French chamber
took Millerand as its first premier,
practically selected by CIemenceau.
He satisfied the chamber for pre-
cisely the reasons which dissatisfied
its successor, the chamber which has
just turned MiIlerand out of the
presidents palace. Thereafter it sent
him to the Elysee, where he contin-
ued powerfully to support the views
of the bloc national. Then, after sew
eral experiments, including BRAND,
the chamber called in Poincare. next
to Millerand most in harmony with
the bloc nationals views. And II was
Millerand who arranged the cards so
that BRAND fell, at the moment of
the Cannes conference.
Thereafter, with MiTlerand In the
Elysee palace and Poincare in the
Quai d'Orsay, the chamber was salts
fed. although there was a tiff over
domestic affairs at the end, leading to
the remaking of the Poincare cabinet
Through all this time Millerand ex-
ercised strong pressure and he it was,
so France believes, who ultimately
drove a hesitant Poincare into the
Ruhr. All things considered, Miller
and and Poincare were to be COM
pared with die-hard leaders, Bonar Law
and Stanley Baldwin in Britain.
Finally, the French chamber having
lived it's life, he had their recent
astonishing French election, the de-
feat of the bloc national, which dis
posed Of Poincare, and the deposition of
Millerand. president by virtue of the
bloc national and its election agent
in the campaign. In place of the bloc
national, which controlled the last
chamber, there was now bloc of the
Left, which controls the new cham
Der, and just as the Tories were evict-
ed by the combined votes Of the Labor
ties and the Liberals. the bloc ma
citation of the Radicals and the So
cialists. with certain minor groups.
Painleve's Rise Significant.
Moreover, the first expression Of the
spirit of the new chamber, aside from
its successful war upon President Mil
lerand, was the election of Paul Pain
leve as president of the lower house.
The selection of Painleve was not
quite as startling as that of Mac
Donald in Britain, although it might
have been, had he later been made
president, as the chamber sought, for
Painleve was almost as much hated
by the French Nationalists for his
war record as Ramsay Macdonald by
the British Tories
Painleves offending had been dur
ing 1917, when. as minister Of war in
the short-lived Ribot cabinet. he had
interfered with the NiveIle offensive