Perfect Victory

In other countries Conservatives dream vainly of victories as perfect as that won throughout the United Kingdom last week by the world's foremost Conservatives. Everyone had expected them to win (TIME, Nov. 18) but warming to their Capitalist cockles was the post-election firming up last week of sterling, sound City shares and Treasury bonds. Though dull as a whole, the campaign had provided just enough brickbats and pieces of lead pipe hurled by Britain's unique proletariat safely over Conservative candidates' heads. There were no bloody riots, best of all no facing of grim domestic issues like the Dole. With genial intuition and not too brazenly, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin caused the vote to be taken last week almost solely on a double question of foreign policy. Such was this double question that, however far the British voter might be from comprehending all its implications, the British voter could only answer with a rousing, yet not too rousing, affirmative. The question boiled down to this: Do you want His Majesty's Government to stand at Geneva for what is Right and simultaneously to start rearming Britain against a future in which safety lies in Might?

Right & Might. If the first half of Squire Baldwin's question, that stressing Right and the League of Nations, had basically appealed to John Bull last week, Captain Anthony Eden, handsome young Minister for League of Nations Affairs, might have been expected to score heavily in his constituency. He was returned to the House of Commons by a much reduced plurality.

On the second half of the question, namely Might and Rearmament, the chief local contest was that waged around the Admiralty's accredited "Big Navy" champion, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes. He made the outstanding gain of the election by an individual Conservative. Obviously no local counts were of much significance, but those for Right & Might, as exemplified by Captain Eden's meagre victory and Admiral Keyes's rousing triumph, caught the fancy of election wiseacres.

Free Hands. In advance of the count the wrongest prophecy was made by unfortunate Viscount Rothermere, blundering "Hearst of England." He told Candidate David Lloyd George, who relayed his words to everyone, that the National Government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Baldwin, would secure a majority of 65. Betting odds at the last minute indicated a majority around 175, with Conservative henchmen predicting with true Conservatism that it would be 160. It turned out to be 249.

Special wires carried election flashes to King George & Queen Mary at Sandringham, to Mr. & Mrs. Stanley Baldwin at No. 10 Downing St. Everyone, the Prime Minister included, expected that the early returns would be the least favorable to his Government since they would come from large industrial centres where votes are counted quickly and in which the Labor Party has its traditional strength. To the amazement of well-posted Britons the whole return ran practically uniform, with National Government winning eventually 53% of the popular vote and 69% of the seats in the House of Commons.

This triumph was the sweeter because it is the only consecutive victory won by any British Government since the War; because it consolidates with an impregnable majority of 249 the fantastic and non-maintainable freak majority of 497 won by the National Government in 1931; finally, because it leaves Conservative Baldwin free to handle the really vital domestic issues in whatever way he and his Conservatives think best for the next five years. In one of the vaguest appeals ever voiced by an electioneering Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin had cried just before the vote, "We ask a free hand to widen the restoration of prosperity!"

So free was the hand given that even in foreign policy His Majesty's Government are bound to nothing specific. Closest students of the Government pledges and campaign oratory could conclude no more than that Britain must rapidly rearm and must not actually abuse the League of Nations. Anxiously the New York Times, foremost of the world's pro-League news-organs, editorialized that "in international decency the Baldwin Government ought now to pursue with more firmness than ever the course which it has been tentatively following" with respect to the League. Italy and Ethiopia.

"Filth!" Formation of the National Government and its freak victory in 1931 was under James Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister, with Stanley Baldwin staying behind the scenes until last June when the Cabinet was "reorganized" with Scot MacDonald dropping into the sinecure of Lord President of the Council and his Son Malcolm becoming Minister of Colonies (TIME, June 17).

In the present campaign the charge would not down that Father MacDonald got Son MacDonald a Cabinet portfolio as the political price paid for his own down-step. This both hotly denied. In any case Britain's proletariat now refuse to forgive "Ramsay" for deserting Labor four years ago at the urging of King George and leading hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Labor voters into the "National Government" fold which is really a Conservative corral. If Labor was betrayed, Mr. MacDonald was its Judas but in 1931 the coal miners of his constituency at Seaham were not sure. Some of them called him "Judas" but he was reelected. This year Seaham is sure. Seaham has howled down Judas MacDonald for the past three weeks. To close friends he conceded defeat fortnight ago but in Seaham he fought on with Scottish courage and at just one meeting last week in Seaham Harbor there was an ovation for the Lord President of the Council, a last cheer by old local friends for Labor's Nationally-hated Judas.

Before the count began Mr. MacDonald boarded a train for London. Said the conductor after the trip, "I never have seen a man so near collapse." From the station Candidate MacDonald drove not to No. 10 Downing St., not even to No. 11 which he occupied at first as Lord President of the Council. Instead he sped obscurely to the little flat in Hampstead where he lived with his much-loved wife until she died 14 years ago. To reporters the Scot said, "I am just a completely done-in old man. All I want is sleep and still more sleep. My energies are absolutely spent."

In his own opinion Mr. MacDonald is a just man in the eyes of God and he has done what he has done for King and Country. While votes were counted his sleep was the sleep of the just. Told that he had lost Seaham to vituperative Emanuel Shinwell, who was Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Mines in his first two Cabinets and who looks amazingly like Stanley Baldwin (see cut), Scot MacDonald said, "I am glad I stuck to my old constituency. I have no wish to bicker but I really feel I am justified in describing the contest as a filthy one. The tactics were absolutely reprehensible. The throwing of brickbats last night at my women supporters in cars came as the climax of absolutely horrible demonstrations."

Also defeated was Son Malcolm.

Red Flag. Seaham's proletariat had meanwhile been carrying Emanuel Shin- well shoulder high amid deafening cheers and full-throated singing of The Red Flag. Elation was increased by news from Scotland that for the first time a 100% United Kingdom Communist, one William Gallacher, had been elected to the House of Commons.* When told what James Ramsay MacDonald had said in London, Emanuel Shinwell snapped: "If there was any 'filth' in this contest it was introduced by my opponent, not myself. MacDonald had no excuse for leaving Seaham before the result was declared. The fact is he could not face the music. He left it to his Son Alister and his Daughter Ishbel, and I feel sorry for them. But for my opponent I feel not a vestige of sorrow. The National Government rested on MacDonald. We have withdrawn the prop. It cannot longer keep up the pretense of being the National Government. We have sent the National Government hurtling to the ground!"

"Splendid Result!'. If logic had ever meant much to British voters the comfortable pretense that there has been a "National Government" since 1931 would of itself have hurtled to the ground years ago. Few nincompoops are dim enough to believe that Squire Baldwin heads a broad coalition of all parties such as is clearly implied by the phrase "National Government."

After the count last week National Government's supporters in the House consist of 385 Conservatives who have a clear majority by themselves, plus 32 Liberals Nationals, eight National Laborites and three independents. Not only did Scot MacDonald, the No. 1 National Laborite. lose his seat but Sir John Simon, the No. 1 Liberal National, was returned by a fluke plurality so slim that his prestige has evaporated, thus leaving Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and his potent Conservative colleague, Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain, supreme, blasting the last real pretense of "National" Government.

Not in the least disconcerted, Squire Baldwin said in his victory message to King & Country: "It is a splendid result. The country has renewed its support of the National Government. It has expressed decisively its confidence in our will and ability to continue our work of National restoration and world peace. . . . We shall give all that is in us in the years ahead to justify the country's trust."

"Two More Elections?" Since the straight Labor Party which figures as His Majesty's Loyal Opposition is Conservative in its own way, the old guard of Labor fixtures and tabby-cat Socialists said comfortably last week that to put a Labor Party Prime Minister in Power may take "two more elections"--the second of which need not be held for another ten years! Dazzled by such unbelievable lack of Labor gumption, Tory papers exulted that "Socialism will not come in the time of Socialists now living."

At Labor headquarters the 154 seats won by the Party last week were cheerfully contrasted with the 52 to which Labor was reduced four years ago by "Judas" MacDonald. For a Party betrayed by its trusted leader, the only Laborite who was ever Prime Minister of Britain, the humdrum oldsters thought they were doing fairly well. Once-famed Labor Party veterans who lost their seats in 1931 climbed back into the House last week in a group including John Robert Clynes, onetime Home Secretary; Albert V. Alexander, forgotten onetime First Lord of the Admiralty; and newly-important Herbert Morrison, who scarcely mattered when he was Minister of Transport in the Second Labor Cabinet of Scot MacDonald (1929-31 ). Today Mr. Morrison is the Labor boss of London's County Council--for surprisingly enough, the municipal government of the Capital of the Empire is now Socialist.

Of the Old Guard, up and coming Herbert is about the most effective M. P. His Majesty's Loyal Opposition will have in the new House of Commons when George V opens it Dec. 3. Pleased as Punch, which was elated last week. London's august Times mealymouthed, "No one but a fanatic would regret the strengthening of the Opposition front bench by such men as Herbert Morrison."

Cripps Surprise. If Labor ever sprouts a virile young guard its British leader may yet be Sir Stafford Cripps. By scathing remarks about the Royal Family and what the Silver Jubilee of King George has cost, Sir Stafford had earned well-merited defeat last week in the view of all loyal subjects. Actually, at Bristol, where his majority in 1931 was only 429, Critic Cripps crashed back into the House of Commons with a majority of 7,000.

As the campaign closed Sir Stafford was dignified to the extent of being fired on by that big Conservative gun. the Rt. Hon. Neville Chamberlain. Boomed the Chancellor of the Exchequer at voters who had scarcely heard of Sir Stafford Cripps: "In Washington not long ago Sir Stafford had about an hour's conversation with President Roosevelt and since then he has been able to tell the whole world what Mr. Roosevelt thought about everything. He does not deny that the return of a Labor Government to power would provoke a financial crisis. He and his friends say this would not matter, as there would be ways of dealing with it, for the invention of which they are indebted to President Roosevelt, who, when there was a heavy rush on American banks, said that any money which was not returned to banks within 14 days would cease to be legal tender in America. All money was back within a week.

"Sir Stafford said it was the invention of Mr. Roosevelt. I say it was the invention of Sir Stafford Cripps. The whole story is entirely invention.

"This is about the biggest and fiercest cat that even Sir Stafford Cripps has let out of the bag.

"You see what he meant--that if he can get this dictatorial power, after he has pushed Parliament out of the way, he proposes to get hold of your savings in the banks and use them for Socialist purposes, and if you object and want to take your money away, then he is going to force you to keep it there as long as he and his Socialist friends want it."

Main point was that Chamberlain had deigned to fire on Cripps. A prompt White House aside had President Roosevelt "unable to recall" having talked with the King-baiter. Crippsters cracked back that Sir Stafford does not recall ever having uttered what the Chancellor of the Exchequer quoted him as having quoted from the President.

King George No Twist, Up for the King stood last week frail old bemonocled Sir Austen Chamberlain against a shower of brickbats none of which came anywhere near him while he cackled at Labor hecklers, "Come on up if you have any pluck!" Since Sir Austen holds the Nobel Peace Prize and received the Garter from George V for his peace prowess at Locarno, his readiness to fight at the age of 72 delighted every Briton and nobody offered to knock off his monocle. To a heckler's shout that King George is a do-nothing and should be paid no more than do-nothings who are on the Dole. Sir Austen gallantly retorted that, whatever the King receives. "His Majesty has never asked for more!"

*Only other Communist M. P. was the Indian Shapurji Saklatvala, who failed of re-election to the House six years ago.

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