Evening star., 1924-03-23
BY FRANK H. SIMONDS.

ONDON-In previous dispatches 1 have
tried to discuss various phases of the
present extraordinarily interesting sit
~ uation in England, and the mean
ing, of what is beyond any question, one of the
great revolutionary changes of British his
tory. In the present article shall try to sum
UP the impressions which 1 am carrying away.
First of all, it is essential to emphasize the
fact that the present British revolution was
complete on the day when Ramsay Macdonald
became his majestys prime minister. In Amer
lea the change of administration is a detail,
and what the new party and President do
after arrival in power is the important thing.
In Britain, the contrary, for very
narrow limitations, all parties must do the
same thing. 1t does not matter whether 1t be
in foreign or domestic politics, it is entirely
out of the nature of British character and
British tradition that any government should
in any large measure depart from the poll
ces and practices of its predecessors.
Thus to imagine rs many of us Americans
did, that when a labor government succeeded
a tory there would be radical change in policy
and method was to imagine a vain thing. The
great, / might almost say the complete,
change when labor itself came to power,
when a great and hitherto unrecognized party
in the British democracy actually to
control Of the British state.
Adopt Others, Policies.
To the American the striking thing there
after that with bewildering succession
Mr.. Macdonald and his associates proceeded to
adopt the policies and the programs of their
predecessors. Ramsay Macdonald seating him.
self in the front bench place of Stanley Bald
win, proceeded to take the program of
air defense of the tories, line for line. ]. H
Thomas, labor leader, rising straight from
the labor fraction of the population, settled
back in the seat vacated by the Duke of De-
yonshire in the ministry of colonies and opened
his tenure of office by Endorsement of the
British civil service.
The outside world expected labor to do
something after it got into power TO signalize
its arrival. The mass Of the British public, de-
spite certain panic campaigns in restricted
quarters, knew that labor could not and would
not do anything different or differently. 1t
realized that the real upheaval was over the
moment labor actually exchanged the opposi-
tion for the government seats
In America such course would imply that
a political party had clambered into power by
profuse promises and had then failed to carry
out its promises. 1t doesn't mean quite that in
England. On the whole, the British people do
not expect different governments to do different
things, they expect them do the same things
and at most to do them little better. That is
the tradition.
You have the violent paradox and England
is always in state of paradox, the paradox
in which the people say at the same moment
How well Mr.. Macdonald has DONE" in the
face of the irrefutable evidence that he has
in fact, actually done next to nothing. More
over, in that lies his great and the
almost unprecedented confidence which his
administration inspires here.
You have the sense that the British people
resolved that there was a large element in
the community which dissatisfied with the
fashion in which things going, that IL
felt that it was not getting square deal and
a fair recognition Similar feelings in Russia
had led to bolshevism and in Italy to fascism.
So the mass of the British people proceeded to
recognize this dissatisfied element, to put it in
power, with certain precautions, and instantly
it became the government, and that was the
end of the matter. Nothing else was changed
and nothing else was expected to be changed
Radicals Will Not Bolt.
There impression in America that
the extreme radical end of the labor party, the
communists, would either force the majority
to extreme actions else break away and
bring the government down in heap. But
nothing of the sort Is expected here. On the
contrary, while it is just possible that GER
tain radicals may desert. there is just sure