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Foreign News: Poltrivia

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TIME

Labor. At Blackpool the labor party last week held its 27th annual conference.

The meeting, coming, as it does, soon after the recent breach between British and Russian trades unions, was noteworthy for its moderation.

The principal speaker was one-time Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald. Much of what he had to say was criticism of the conservative regime, and much was no doubt uttered for its political effect.

Challenging Premier Stanley Baldwin and predicting an early date for the next general elections, Mr. MacDonald said: “It has been delayed too long. We are ready for it any time. The Labor Party is determined to present to the Nation definite pledges of workable reforms rather than vague propaganda for a distant Socialist State.”

The onetime Labor Premier again sponsored nationalization of the mines in these words: “The manner in which the mines are now conducted is a most magnificent example of the absolute failure of private enterprise in industry. There are good mine owners, but, taking them in bulk, there is not a body of employers in this country who have behaved with more tyranny—harsh tyranny—in the plain, simple economic relations between adamant Capital and subordinate Labor.

“When I left office in 1924 I really felt that if the country had 10 or 12 years of a government by men of fair minds the mining industry might turn the corner, but after my experience of the negotiations last year my mind has become narrower. I am compelled to admit, against what I would like and hope for, that there is much bitterness and much steely hardness behind velvet gloves.”

Then, referring to charges that he had “groveled” before the Baldwin government, he said: “In order to stave off a storm threatening to overwhelm the workers of this country, I would go on my knees if necessary.”

Reform of the House of Lords was also aired. Lord Arnold, a Labor Peer, said: “I tell you as one within it, that the House of Lords will never give Labor a fair deal. The House of Lords is blind to the signs of the times. It is callous, selfish, cynical, inconsistent, factious, obstructive, unscrupulous and utterly reactionary.”

Great as was the ovation he received, it was as nothing to the hoots of mirth and the raucuous guffaws of laughter that met “Jumping Jack” Jones’ declaration that “the only reform I am willing to give the House of Lords is chloroform. . . .”

Conservative. At Cardiff, Wales, the Conservative Party held its 55th annual conference.

Enfranchising women between the ages of 21 and 30 was the most important motion before the conference, and one that seemed, in the early stages of discussion, likely to be defeated.

Women of over 30 years, an age to which few of the feminine sex will admit, even to obtain the vote, have been enfranchised since 1918, but hard-hearted Tories urged that the vote should not be extended to politically uneducated “flappers”— meaning women of 21 or over.

At that moment the conference saw a strange sight. Leaning on the arm of Viscount Curzon-was Captain Ian Fraser, a blinded young war veteran. Slowly the two moved through the 3,500 assembled Conservative delegatives to the rostrum. Then, standing sightless, Captain Fraser made a two minute speech in which he put forward a stirring plea for faith in young British womanhood.

The effect was almost electrical. The conference was, so to speak, stampeded and forthwith, almost as one man, the members rose to cry “aye” to the motion proposing that women of 21 should receive the vote. Irate Tories cursed.

Premier Baldwin later in the day made extension of the franchise the strongest point of his speech on government policy, promising to make Britain “truly democratic” before the next general elections. He then charged Viscount Rothermere, Tzar of British newspaperdom, with sole opposition to granting young women the vote and went on paradoxically to challenge that the “noble Lord” state before all the world whether he was now supporting the Conservatives or the Liberals.

The Premier discussed onetime Premier MacDonald’s invitation to call a general election, saying that he was too sporting an opponent to hit the Labor Party until it had a stronger issue than repeal of the Trades Union Act.

* Not to be confused with the late George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess of Kedleston, onetime British Foreign Secretary, or with his nephew, the present Richard Nathaniel Curzon, Viscount Scarsdale.

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