Evening star., 1935-11-24
BY FRANK III. sIMoNDs.

AI Of the recent general election
" In England have cleared away,
a. it is possible to examine in
detail the superb strategy Of Stanley
Baldwin. Actually the latest cam
paign Is the third in which the Brit
ish prime minister has seized upon a
fortunate opening to sweep his party
back into power and to throw the
opposition into hopeless confusion and
disarray.
The first Of these occasions was in
1924, when the Tory leader exploited
the notorious Zinoviev letter to pre-
cipitate Red scare in England and,
on the strength of that, expel the first
Labor government from Office The
second was in 1881, when he grasped
the financial crisis as a pretext for
forming a national government, steal
ing Macdonald, Snowden and Thomas
from Labor and routing his disorgan-
lied and shaken foes
The same strategy marked the cam
paign which ended on November IA.
This time Baldwin robbed Labor, not
Of its leaders, but of its issue. Ever
since the war Labor has stood solidly
against foreign risks and for domestic
disarmament. But with the onset of
the Ethiopian crisis it changed front
and declared in favor Of sanctions-of
military sanctions If necessary-in
order to punish nations guilty of ag-
gresSion, as was italy in East Africa.
No Issue for Issue.
Once Labor had taken that stand
then it had lost its chance to continue
to advocate disarmament. For, obvious
ly. the attempt to apply military and
naval sanctions to an armed nation
like Italy might lead to forcible resist
ance and thus to war. Labor could
not, therefore, at one time urge mill
tary sanctions and resist the Tory de-
mands for the strengthening of the
naval, military and aerial branches of
national defense. 1t had, thereafter,
no issue. Thus the Tories at last
came into their own, and Great Brit
ain will join the continental countries
in the ornaments race.
Tory championship Of the League
OF Nations was, of course, one detail
in this domestic political strategy.
BY rushing overnight to the defense
OF Geneva, Baldwin stampeded the
considerable number Of its British
advocates, who were in large part
either members Of the Liberal or Labor
opposition. Once the opposition had
been captured, then Baldwin had
probably assured to the Tories five
more years of Office and to the navy,
which always counts for much in a
Tory government, the chance to re-
cover the ground lost at the several
naval conferences, beginning with the
one in Washington in 1921 and end
ing with that in London in 1880.
Abroad, too. he had made the
League Of Nations an instrument Of
British policy. France, which had
dominated Geneva for over a decade,
was ousted from control, British in
f1uence in Europe was restored by
one swift stroke, after having suffered
an eclipse ever since the Paris Peace
Conference. Italy was confronted by
the resolution Of Tory government
to smash its Fascist regime and abol-
ish its dictator unless it abandoned
its own colonial aspirations in so far
as these conflicted with the estab-
lished imperial interests Of Great
Britain.
Hitler Put on Notice.
paryAFd TfoIu
Hitler, like Mussolini, was put on no
tice that the British could and would
use Geneva to curb any German
projects which did not meet with their
approval. At will now the British
could, at Geneva, rally to its side the
smaller states of Europe, fearful of
German designs. direct against Berlin
the same sort of economic and fnan-
cial coercion it loosed against Rome,
and smash Germany as it had under
taken to smash Italy by material
strangulation backed by British naval
power.
The world is, accordingly, about to
face q period of British supremacy.
The terms of this new hegemony are
unmistakable. The League has been
captured, France is being bought,
Italy is to be broken to the point
where, the British calculate, it will
be satisfied to escape from the
Ethiopian affair with a whole skin
and small territorial handout, per-
haps supplemented by a loan. If
Mussolini does not confess his error
in thinking of Italy as great power
and resume the old situation where
a whistle from LONDON produced
salute in Rome, he will be smashed.
If he now removes his hat with
sufficiently respectful obeisance he
may be let off. But either way Lon
don calculates he will be Inundated
beyond recovery.
The British have now to deal with
Germany and Japan. But the Tory
government has pretty clearly indi-
Gated what it means to do in both
instances. The Germans are to be
told quite frankly that they must