Beavermere Crusade

Flatly defying all three British political parties--Labor, Liberal and Conservative--the Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere, famed "Hearsts of England," spurred off on a new journalistic crusade last week, founded with blare and ballyhoo a fourth party: "The United Empire Party."

Not since the days of Lord Randolph Churchill's dauntless little band which broke up in the '80s has England had such a blatant "fourth party" (see p. 23). Never before in the whole history of politics has a new party received at its inception such potent newspaper support as that lavished, last week, on what London wags called the "Beavermere Party."

Its opening manifesto went out to six million British homes, not as propaganda but in the news columns of the "Beavermere" press. It was topped by banner headlines, buttressed by editorials and addressed with shrewd psychology to "men and women."*

Couched in the most personal terms and signed by Baron Beaverbrook, the manifesto began:

"It is now ten weeks since I invited all men and women who believe as I do on the matter of empire trade to join a crusade to further our objects. Already a hundred thousand men and women have enrolled as founder members and I receive daily from every part of the country and the empire letters revealing ardent hopes and intense enthusiasms inspired by the free-trade policy. It has aroused new hopes among people who were beginning to despair of ever being offered a straight forward constructive policy as a remedy for our unemployment and poor trade." In point of fact the Beavermere scheme for "Empire Free Trade" is the exact reverse of '"straight-forward." Trade is to be free within the Empire, but around the Empire is to rise a tariff wall. Deliberately contradictory, this '"straight-for ward" scheme has been denounced in Parliament by all three parties (TIME, Feb. 10), a fact of which the manifesto proceeded to take scathing note: "Snowden has poured out his scorn: Lloyd George has been moved to put on his full warpaint and to cut his most com ical capers, and Baldwin looks the other way while some of his lieutenants threaten all who dare to believe in the economic union of the empire." In a ringing appeal for contributions to the new party's fund, last week, Baron Beaverbrook declared that all receipts and expenditures will be publicly audited, challenged the old guard parties to be equally frank about their money. Within 24 hours contributions totaling $92,500 had poured in, and the Beavermere press thundered that five members of Parliament elected as Conservatives had gone over to the United Empire Party. All five were comparative nobodies, the most prominent being Sir Alfred Butt, theatrical producer, and Sir Newton J. Moore, who twice upon a time was Premier of the province of Western Australia. Among the thousands who clipped and signed coupons enrolling them as "Empire Crusaders" was Sir Henry Segrave. world's fastest motorist. First ty coon to join the founders of the party was Sir Herbert Austin, the "Ford of Britain,'' who sees in the proposed high tariff wall his best defence against competition from the original Henry Ford.

Significance. Baron Beaverbrook is frankly out to become Prime Minister, vaunts himself a "business statesman." Viscount Rothermere has failed to get political preferment for his son, Cecil Harmsworth, from any of the old line parties, hopes to make the young man an Ambassador. Last week the Beaver-meres insisted that they would contest "more than 50 seats" at the next General Election. All political dopesters agreed that the effect of this would be to defeat Conservative candidates in constituencies contested by a United Empirist, and probably to elect the Labor candidates in such constituencies. In other words the new party will split the Conservatives, how disastrously it remains to be seen.

*Needless to recall 5,000,000 women were enfranchised (TIME, Aug. 13, 1928) in time for the last British General Election (TIME, June 10), but they bit the hand of the party that gave them the vote--Conservatives helped measurably to put in power Laborite James Ramsay MacDonald.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.