10 to 1

10 to 1

With a rumble of content, Sir John Cadman, alert Board Chairman of Anglo-Persian Oil Co., Ltd.,* learned last week that Lloyd's was offering insurance odds of 10-to-1 favoring the Baldwin Government to win Britain's general election Nov. 14. Confident Conservatives were saying at campaign headquarters: "The Government are as much embarrassed by the attacks of Lloyd George and Snowden as a lion facing two gnats." Presently a secretary told Tycoon Cadman that Gnat Lloyd George had declared in what he meant for a stinging attack on His Majesty's Government: "Sanctions will not stop the advance of Mussolini's army, not by one hour! They will not save one Ethiopian life. Sanctions will not prevent guns and ammunition, or any war material or troops, from passing from Italy to reinforce the attack on Ethiopia. They are passing freely now. We are supplying Italy, through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, in which we are, I think, the largest shareholders, now with the oil used in her bombing airplanes! "I saw the Ethiopian Minister today, and it was a very pleasant conversation I had. These bombing airplanes are dropping bombs on women and children and an English company is supplying the oil!" In the Welsh gnat's audience scores of English mites had risen to cry, "Shame! Shame!" But reports of their emotion left Sir John Cadman unstirred. Blandly confirming that the British Government's great oil combine was indeed selling oil last week to Dictator Mussolini, Sir John added comfortably: "However, it is in full accordance with League sanctions, because payment is being made," as allowed by Geneva, "namely in cash"--i.e., British credit is being withheld as a sanction but not British oil.

Lion's Budget. More of a buzzard than a lion in face and figure, the Rt. Hon. Neville Chamberlain, is nonetheless the lion of Britain's general election. With his famed "balanced budget" now a symbol of the National Government's successful stewardship, the beak-nosed and scrawny Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke last week as a complacent treasurer who expects soon to float a $1,000,000,000 British rearmament loan without so much as flurrying the market. "There is not a single small country in Europe," Mr. Chamberlain declared, "which did not breathe a sigh of relief when it learned at last that we are going to put ourselves in a position to defend ourselves if necessary and play the part of fulfilling our obligations under the League Covenant."

Gnat Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden of Ickornshaw, who was Mr. Chamberlain's predecessor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, vainly tried to sting him with understatement last week. "I have been merciful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in dealing with his Unbalanced budgets," said Viscount Snowden. "I made no mention of the fact that for years he has defaulted on the American debt payments. He has reduced Great Britain to the level of the seven defaulting States of the American Confederacy. . . . The domestic record of this masquerading 'National Government' is one of almost unrelieved failure and cruel complacence. They are now trying to exploit the international situation to gain another long term in office which would be a national misfortune and an international calamity!"

Just deigning to swish at the gnats, Chancellor Chamberlain declared that a victory for the Labor Party would mean an immediate nationwide run on banks, collapse of the security market, a flight from the pound, breakup of the League of Nations and, in short, national and Imperial bankruptcy!

Even with the odds 10-to-1 in their favor, His Majesty's Government kept their best bogy-man, Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, busy scaring Britons into voting Conservative by enlarging last week on his theme that Nazi "monsters" from beyond the Rhine may be about to butcher British babies (see p. 19). Cried Orator Churchill: "Unless we rearm, Britain will be reduced to the present plight of Ethiopia! . . . We shall be stripped not only of our overseas possessions but even in our own island we will be subjugated."

Gadfly Churchill, recalling that Gnat Snowden advised voting for the National Government in 1931 when he was its Chancellor of the Exchequer but now advises voting against it, climaxed Britain's election forensics thus: "Lord Snowden is trying to smash the parties in our governments one after another, leaving the country in a paralyzed, headless condition!"

Slide Reversed. In 356 local British elections for municipal councilors last week the trend was sharply Conservative, reversing the trend last year when Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had not yet pulled the League of Nations & War Scare out of his political hat and municipal elections resulted in a Labor landslide.

In on that Labor slide, and still in last week for a term not expiring until 1937, was London's present Socialist-crammed Council headed by Cockney Herbert Morrison. Up to last week Laborite Morrison, though his Party is wallowing almost without helm or steerageway amid the general election, had miserably failed to qualify as Labor's Captain in a shipload of nonentities.

Samuel Prophecy. Outside the United Kingdom, dismayed Laborites and Socialists of the Second International discounted in advance another victory for Capitalism. They were afraid British Liberal Leader Sir Herbert Samuel was right last week when he predicted: "In a few months' time His Majesty's Government will express regret to Parliament that the League of Nations has failed, that the fault for that failure rests with every government but our own, and that there is nothing left but isolation or alliances involving in any case immense additional expense on arms."

"Eden Hats." Seasoned London correspondents heard last week in Conservative circles that "of course Eden must go," the intimation being that Minister for League of Nations Affairs Anthony Eden will be paid for his service at Geneva in drumming up votes by promoting him to "one of the five ministries which carry the rank and pay of a full Secretary of State." Eden was being mentioned as Secretary of State for Dominions, with hopes voiced that if any Briton can charm Irish Free State President Eamon de Valera into complacence, charming Captain Eden can. Though all this seemed most premature, British manufacturers of headgear known as an "Eden hat," factually reported that last week London shops abruptly stopped reordering.

Baldwin Bandwagon. In a last minute reverse and spurt to climb on the Baldwin Bandwagon, peppery Lieut. Colonel Leopold Stennet Amery, who a few days before had flayed the Prime Minister for "playing with fire" in his threat of sanctions at Geneva, rushed off to his Conservative constituency at Birmingham and went the whole hog in fulsome praise of portly Squire Baldwin whose hobby is raising pigs. All last year Colonel Amery and Mr. Churchill fought the Prime Minister from within his Party on the India Bill. "Winnie" leaped for the band wagon in plenty of time (TIME, Sept. 2) while Colonel Amery last week was called "too late."

*Officially this company changed its name to Anglo-Iranian Oil last June after Persia had changed its name to Iran in March.

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