Evening star., 1935-10-07
LABOR IN ENGLAND
CHEATED OF ISSUE
Governments Support OF
Sanctions Splits Up
Party'S Leaders.
BY A. G. GARDINER,
Ennland's Liberal Editor.

LONDON, october 7.-All talk of a
November election has subSided. The
Italian crisis has vetoed that.
If there has been discussion in the
government on the policy to be pur-
sued or If public opinion had been
substantially hostile to that policy.
there would have been strong grounds
for an appeal to the electorate. But
the cabinet is unanimous and the coun-
try is overwhelmingly behind its de-
termination to stand by the League
Of Nations covenant.
Nothing would suit Prime Minister
Baldwin better from a merely electo-
raj point of view than an election this
Autumn and on this issue. 1t Is not
merely that party divisions have largely
disappeared under the stress OF a
peril as grave as that of 1914 and that
there would be no disposition to swap
horses" while crossing so turbulent a
stream. 1t Is that the only party
which could conceivably come to
power is in hopeless chaos on the one
question that matters. The split in
the ranks of labor in regard to the
application of sanctions has shattered,
temporarily at all events, any hope
that the party had Of returning to
power.
Labor Always for League.
Officially labor has always been the
stoutest pillar of the League Of Ma
tions structure and at its meeting at
Margate it declared decisively in ia
vor of the application of sanctions. 1t
did this despite the fact that 1t put
labor in the position of backing the
government on a cardinal issue.
1t had been one of its chief lndlct-
ments of the government that it had
not pressed for League OF Nations
action against Japan in Manchuria,
and Sir Stafford Cripps, leader OF the
extreme wing of the party, said two
or three months ago that he would
have employed not only economic but
even military sanctions in that case.
But no sooner had the party made
its decision than the leaders TOOK
alarm at the prospect of supporting a
government which it was their mair
purpose in life to discredit and destroy
George Lansbury, Parliamentary leader
of the party, became seized with con.
scientious objections, declared that he
was a peace -at-any-price man, was
opposed to the applications OF sane
tions and offered to resign his position
in view of the party attitude.
Cripps Follows Suit.
His action gave his party severe
shock. intensified when Cripps, leader
of the Socialist wing came out as the
uncompromising foe of sanctions and
the government. For sanctions when
the government failed to advocate
them. he is against them now. Wher
he resigned from the party's Executive
Committee, Lord Ponsonby followed
suit by resigning the leadership OF
Labor in the House of Lords, and LORD
Arnold, who would have succeeded him
in that position has announced his
agreement with him.
Thus with leader in the House o1
Commons who is opposed to the party
policy, and a stampede Of its leaders
in the House of Lords, Labor is tenn.
porarily in disruption.
The rupture makes what would seem
to be a final breach between the party
and the little group of intelectuals
of the Cripps, Laski, Cole School, who
seek to reconstruct the Labor platform
on the Russian model and who have
not yet appreciated the fact that the
English working man, even though he
accepts the Labor ticket, is, in the
words of wit Of the party. about
as revolutionary as Christmas
pudding"
(Copyrisht 1g35O