Evening star., 1926-03-07
BRITAIN GRADUALLY NEARS
TWO.PARTY GOVERNMENT
Tories Now in Control, But Breakup of
Liberal Party and Eventual Union With
Laborites Believed Sure to Come.

the mines are from the economic and
business point of view. only to he run
at loss. The business must he re-
orga nized, the bad mines SCrapped.
The remedy is not q uatiOna iizatl'U
which would compel the government
to run improbable mines AT a loss.
but business reorca niZation which
would combine ruthless scrappinE Of
uneconomiC mines with ruthlessly et-
hcient conduct of those economically
profitable.
Labor advocates ultiona lizatiou.
which would keep the bad mines run
ming at government expense, the To-
ries advocate the application of more
business Principles which would r"-
ducp the wages "f the miners IN
point where the Improbable mines
would pay to operate. i'ut the Tory
government is working toward posi-
tion in which the gradual aha ndon-
ment of unprutitahle mines and the vi
innate repeal of all subsidies VIII he
achieved without any single sharp
crisis.
1t is really the Tory party. aS led hr
Mr. Baldwin. which at the moment IL
standing for Il policy of adjustment,
while Labor is ON unsound cconomi"
grounds. The country will not stand
for nationa naliZatiou. but il probably
will stand for Il continuation uf thr
subsidy for n certain time after May
and for such other compromises a.
will avoid any class conflict. In q
word. Mr. Baldwin is To a far greater
extent than Mr.. Macdonald able ="
escape from the domination of his "N
tremists.
Tories Hold Advantage.
In the long run. the evolution "f
both parties will lie completed and We
shall have conservative and radical
facing each other. but this eVri1ti"n
will not he complete until the mod
crates i'm both camps have conquered
the extremists. In reality The prob
lens the internal party pr"hlems "t
Macdonald and Baldwin arc not
greatly different and oddly enough.
the differences between the temper
and character of thu tW" men are not
very profound.
I;ut during the transitional period
British politics j. ON q rather uu-
usual basis. The old two party system
has disappeared and il viii not be re-
stored until the Liberal party has
been absorbed. Ii there We're a new
election In any time which can now
be enViSa ged the Tories would win
ha nds down. That they will win the
next election, three or four years
Indeed. it is safe To say that they will
win until Labor has lived down the
reputation which il acquired in the
closing phase of its lease of power he
cause of hlundering in the Russian
affairs
! On the other hand when At last the
country does weary of the Tories. as.
I of course. il is bound to weary in the
end, and whom the Xinoviev episode
.t.,.-.
gotten. it will he Labor which win
come into power. Today the Tories
are holding power by adopting a fairly
radical policy. Even they could not
hang ON if they adopted "dir-h1rd."
\ that is reactionarN, ideas. The Labor
tlrn will eventually come when Labor
is able To demonstrate that it would
rule CuuSerNatINrlN.
| Labor Due to Come Back.
ON all questions of foreign policy
| there is absolutely no difference be
tween Tory and Labor, and Sir Austen
Chamberlain's great successes are in
reality in no small degree the harvest
Of Mr.. MacDonald's sowing. t nques-
| tiOnably the Labor party is growing
/ and consolidating. ii is the opposition
party of the present and the alterna-
! tive party of the future. hut IT cannot
make real progress now until the
/ liberal parity breaks up.
At huttom the disappearance OF the
/ liberal PARTY and the vncrscucc ~
/ Labor grows out Of the fact that
I Labor represents one side of the only
/ great issue in the nation today, name
! ly that between capital and labor.
while the Tory party represents the
/ other. But the country has not the
| smallest intention of standing for the
traditional class war" II insists
that labor and capital serve their re-
spective causes by employing the ira
ditional British political machinery.
When It is sufficiently plain that
Labor will play the game" in the
British fashion, then it will most Ger.
tainly come back into power.
The KEY of the british character Is
shown I'm the fact that it expects the
conservatives to be radical in office
and ;he radicals to be conservative IN
power. Within certain limits Mae
Donald did play the game and IL he
/ had not blundered in the Russian ca se
he would have remained in power for
a long time Now Stanley Baldwin
is emphatically playing the game"
and there his situation is impreCna.
hle with the mass of the British peO-
pie
Seeks to Avoid Class Clash.
Tie great problem for number of
/ postwar years has been to avoid that
class struggle which seemed tnevit-
able following the conflict. The liter
| alV frightful economic problems of
! Britain have been until very recently
the natural material out of which TO
/ precipitate revolution. But the Brit
ish people have no patience with the
e t.. i . tlyA oil
est notion of permitting their country
to become the battlefield of the classic
| MARKHAM conflict
The gravest difficulty for an Amer
lean or any other foreigner in con
siderinG British political conditions is
! the inability To appreciate the enor-
nous instinct of the British for com
promise and adjustment and their al
most unparalleled experience with
! crises. The EnElshman instinctivelv
! shrinks from elaborate and detailed
solutions. lie does not readily respond
J to involved programs. on the con
| trary he is convinced that no matter
what either party may announce
before election, both will he about the
same things in power.
! The really striking popularity OF
| Stanley Baldwin at the moment lies
precisely in the fact that he is. all
/ things considered. the most English
! thing that has led in politics in very
! long time. lie has the reputation. in
valuable in British politics. of beiu-
both stupid and honest. and above all
a little slow. Moreover the same repu-
tation is possessed by his most con
| spicuous lieutenant at the moment
! Sir Austen Chamberlain.
Baldwin Hold Strong.
| When Baldwin inherited the leader
ship Of the Tory party from the lat"
Bonar Law the country was taken hv
| slIrnrise and there WAS cenhral hn.