Amazing Fourteenth

An outstanding lesson in the art of British politics was afforded last week by its great master. A simple date and his reasons for choosing it gave the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin all the scope a political artist needs to run the whole gamut of his virtuosity. The situation: The Prime Minister was about to call a sudden ''snap election" on Nov. 14 because he thinks his government can win more votes on their foreign policy amid Europe's present state of alarm than they possibly could on their domestic record quietly considered.

The snap is a low trick, nonetheless low for being common, and it was the master's task last week to make it appear lofty. Since he had asked the King to dissolve Parliament last week a full year before its term is up. Mr. Baldwin wished to quote the late great Lord Macaulay as as approving such a move. "The words I am going to quote do not come together in context," confessed the Prime Minister putting together snatches of Macaulay and quoting him as having written: "A wise Minister will always dissolve a year before the end of the legal term."

From this Authority. Mr. Baldwin proceeded to that other British shibboleth, Precedent. "In the half century before [Macaulay] wrote, nearly every Parliament was brought to an end a year before the legal limit." he cried. "So [too] when you come to the brave days of Disraeli and Gladstone."

Next came a third shibboleth, the Inevitability of whatever His Majesty's Government have decided to do, and this Prime Minister Baldwin set forth at length.

''There are the gravest difficulties in having an election at any other time of the year than autumn or in the first six weeks of the new year." he began. "You find in nearly the last forty years the only exception to that rule was when I was Prime Minister in May, I think it was, 1929.

"To do that we had to present a noncontentious budget and get it through quickly and ask the House of Commons --which is not a practice I ever propose to repeat -- to curtail its discussions on supply by a great deal and give up one of its essential functions in order to allow the election to take place. Therefore. I have long since come to the conclusion that you must rule out the spring and summer months because of financial business. You must rule out August and September because of the holidays. You are left autumn, but in no circumstances must you run into any interference with Christmas trade."

Meanwhile last week His Majesty's Loyal Opposition--the Labor Party-- demanded an opportunity before the snap election to present and have the House of Commons debate a motion censuring the Government for shortcomings in regard to unemployment relief. To avert this and gag the Opposition last week, Mr. Baldwin declared: "The question of unemployment is of profound importance [but] I am afraid the only thing to do in the circumstances is. in the words of the sporting papers, to change venue. A vote of censure will be moved in the country before the one tribunal by whose decision we must all abide"--i.e. the electorate. And, so saying, Mr. Baldwin refused bluntly to permit the House of Commons to vote on a motion of censure of his government.

In the subsequent course of debate (see p. 22) the Prime Minister's party whips kept his Conservative henchmen on their feet talking about foreign affairs hour after hour, this tactic crowding Labor M. P.'s out of all adequate opportunity to express their views. It amounted, as one U. S. correspondent said, to a filibuster by His Majesty's Government to silence His Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

Before this stage was reached, however, the Prime Minister, still on his great theme of Nov. 14. declared: "Sir Herbert Samuel . . . asked, 'Why have an election now. when there is such a critical position in foreign affairs?' It was in trying to find an answer to the question that I made up my mind the other day on the precise date of the election. ... I saw last week that, as far as could be seen ahead . . . there was coming a lull in foreign affairs, and as far as I could see it would be perfectly safe to hold an election in that time. I could not say the same for January."

This last proved too much for Great Britain's Prime Minister during the Great War, hoary David Lloyd George. Cried he: "Can anyone recall since the Great War a more sinister moment than now? So, if there is a 'lull,' it must mean that this Government has given guarantee: The Foreign Secretary shakes his head but if he says that no guarantees have been given by the Government to Italy, then I cannot understand what the Prime Minister meant by his amazing reference to 'the lull.'" Since for electioneering purposes His Majesty's Government must keep backstairs dealing with Dictator Mussolini on the back stairs until after Nov. 14. Mr. Lloyd George got no satisfaction last week. He taxed Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare to reveal the contents of the secret communication which passed between him and II Duce through Sir Eric Drummond, the British Ambassador in Rome (TIME, Oct. 28), and spoke of it as "the famous letter."

Sir Samuel: I have never written it.

Mr. Lloyd George: The Foreign Secretary is quibbling. In some form it was transmitted!

Smartest trick of the week was a decision by His Majesty's Government that, whereas His Majesty's subjects will vote on Nov. 14, dole payments to unemployed with children will be upped one-third on Nov. 8.

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