Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-31
British Prime Minister
Faces Many Difficulties
BY A. G. GARDINER,

! LONDON, August 30-In the most
| torrtd weather experienced in England
for 20 years, Prime Minister Ramsay
| Macdonald has curtailed his brief holi-
day in the Far North and flown back to
| Lonoon this week to face an unprece-
denied accumulation of f1rst-class issues
| affecting both home and foreign affairs.
! His first business was meeting with
Lloyd George and other representatives
of the Liberal party for the purpose Of
considering common policy regarding
unemployment the magnitude of which
| steadily increases. Registered persons
out of work now exceed 100000.
The most disquieting feature of this
problem is generally agreed to be the
breakdown OF the unemployment insur-
ance scheme under the growing burden
| Of uncovenanted benefits to uninsured,
known as the dole, which has already
left the scheme with a deficiency Of
100000 and threatens the gravest
disaster to the next budget.
4 y
Scandals associated with the admin
istration Of the dole have now alarmed
even the Labor party, which realizes
that insured workmen are being ex@
plotted for the endowment of wastrel@
ism, and Prime Minister Macdonald
mas appointed committee representing
all parties to formulate remedies for the
profigacy that threatens bankruptcy
for the whole insurance system
But the chief reason for MacDonsld's
early return to London is the need of
preparing for the great events which
VIII fill the next two months-the as
sembly of the League of Nations ut
Geneva, which opens next week; the
Imperial Conference, which takes place
In London during September, and the
round-table conference on India, which
is fixed for october.
x y X
Of these the most anxious Is the Con-
ference on India for the question
whether the Indian Congress can be
induced to send representatives still is
unsettled, although the negotiations
have not broken down. M p. Jayaker
and T. Bahadur Sapru have borne Ma
hatula Ghandi's terms to the viceroy
and are now returning to Allahabad
and Poona, presumably with the view
OF seeing Ghandi and Nehrus again.
Meanwhile, events do not make the
prospects for success more hopeful.
Bomb outrages in Bengal and arrogant
demands made upon Bombay cotton
spinners that they practically cut of
all association with British control. as
a condition of being removed from the
black list, have. aggravated internal
feeling, and the arrest of the Working
Committee Of Congress at Delhi Is
taken here to indicate the gravity of
The outlook, especially in view Of the
extreme patience and forbearance
shown throughout by the viceroy.
X X *
But the position is not without fea-
lures OF hopefulness. The two bodies
which Will certainly be represented at
the London Conference have passed de-
clsions illustrative of the general tend
ency TO rally around the Simon Com
mission report as the basis of settle
ment. The European Association at
Calcutta has passed a resolution in this
sense, although an important minority
favored q return to the Morley-M
regime.
More significant is the fact that the
conference representatives of the South
ern Uedtan states at Trancere have
shown marked change in their atti-
tude toward the Simon report. The
Dewan of Mysore declared, apparently
with approval of his audience, that full
autonomy In the provinces and respon-
sibiltty at the CENTER" with transitional
would satisfy all reasonable
people in India. This is q very marked
advance on the part of a powerful sec
ton of Indian opinion, but much more
Is needed before 1t can be said that the
prospects of the conference are hopeful.
The difhculties are not only In India.
In England there are descriptive infiu-
ences, small but noisy, which have
FOUND voice in Winston Churchill, who
with characteristic responsibility had
doomed the conference in advance, dL-
nouncing 1t as an expression of that
spirit Of defeatism in high places wllics
IS so rapidly throwing India intS
chaos"