GREAT BRITAIN: Monstrous Majority

Jack, who planted the beanstalk, was surprised when it sprouted high as Heaven. But he made a good thing of it, climbed up and worsted the Giant. Last week James Ramsay MacDonald, who planted his National Government in the doubtful soil of a General Election (TIME, Nov. 2, et ante), was simply astounded. “We appealed for a demonstration of national unity,” he said. “The response has been far beyond the dreams of the most enthusiastic of us.”

The election beanstalk had sprouted as none in Britain ever sprouted before. Century ago in the reign of King William IV there was something remotely like it. In 1831 the Second Earl Grey, Prime Minister, returned to Parliament with 370 Whig seats, the record party victory for all time until 1931. Last week the National Government of James Ramsay MacDonald returned supported by 476 Conservatives, 66 National Liberals, 13 National Laborites (including the Prime Minister) and 2 Independents. Total: the National Government holds the prodigious total of 557 seats in a House! of Commons of 615. Such miracles used to happen only in the tales of Mother Goose.

Baldwin Says “No” His beanstalk having sprouted, Jack-the-Premier had to cope with the Giant—or, as Cartoonist Callan of the Vancouver Sun aptly put it, with the Giantess.

No British law, no rule of Parliament bound Stanley Baldwin, party leader of 476 Conservative M. P.’s, to continue his support of Scot MacDonald, party leader of 13 National Laborites.

Mr. Baldwin might have withdrawn his support at once from the National Government. He might have claimed, as leader of the party which itself had won a majority in Parliament, that his right to be Prime Minister was clear.

But who wants to be Prime Minister of Great Britain just now? Certainly not honest Stanley Baldwin who. bungled the job when it was his and has more than a dim realization of that fact (TIME, Dec. 22). Mr. Baldwin and Mr. MacDonald are warm friends. They created the National Government on a friendly basis in dire emergency. Mr. Baldwin is English to the core. He loves fair play, he loves his pigs and his pipe (he bought a new cherry pipe last week, his only postelection exuberance). Also Mr. & Mrs. Baldwin fear God. They see all around them the workings of a Higher Power able to work even election miracles. Last week Stanley Baldwin said: “The election was an emphatic declaration by the people in favor of national cooperation. . . . That is my view.”

When younger, militant, more ambitious Conservatives begged Leader Baldwin to put some kind of pressure on the Prime Minister, to demand at the very least that two-thirds of all ministries in the post-election National Government must be turned over to Conservatives, Mr. Baldwin knocked out his pipe and said, “No.”

Scot MacDonald was soon able to announce that Honest Stanley had granted him what the London Times called “power to exercise his unfettered choice as to Ministers, regardless of any claim based on long party services or the precise proportions of parties in the ranks of his supporters.” To exercise this choice the Prime Minister rushed off to Chequers, his official country seat, while London buzzed with predictions as to the

Probable Cabinet. When the Prime Minister had been hard at work for two days a source close to Scot MacDonald disclosed this “tentative Cabinet”:

Chancellor of the Exchequer: Neville Chamberlain, the high-tariff Conservative who managed his party’s phenomenally successful election campaign.

Foreign Secretary: Sir Austen Chamberlain, famed elder brother, toplofty Nobel Peace Prize winner (1925). But Sir Austen was reported willing to take a sinecure (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) and to leave the Marquess of Reading at the Foreign office.

First Lord of the Admiralty: Lord Hailsham, to succeed Sir Austen.

Secretary for War: Winston Churchill, smoking hot with pride because Epping returned him last week with his majority quadrupled.

Present members of the National Government slated to keep their posts:

Home Secretary: Sir Herbert Samuel, who led the “National Liberal” bolt from Lloyd George to Scot MacDonald.

Secretary for India: Sir Samuel Hoare, present Conservative representative in the India Round Table Conference.

Secretary for Dominions: James Henry (“Jim”) Thomas, the Cabinet’s bridge expert.

Two sinecures were tentatively disposed of thus:

Lord President of the Council: Stanley Baldwin.

Lord Privy Seal: Philip Snowden.

Sir John Simon, Liberal, who also bolted from Lloyd George to the National Government, was mentioned last week for almost every prominent Cabinet post, also for appointment as British High Commis-sioner to renegotiate Reparations and War Debts.

Editorialized the London Times: “The first principle of the election, necessary to an efficient National Government, is the expulsion of those likely to prove centres of irritation and obstruction. . . .”

Plutocrat’s Parliament. One Major General, five Brigadier Generals, 22 Lieutenant Colonels and more than 125 M. P.’s with rank above a Captain or a Commander were returned to the House last week. Along with these officially “Gallant Members,” 20 courtesy Lords (heirs to peerages) were elected. Among them was Edward of Wales’s close friend and frequent golf opponent, Viscount Ednam. Even Loel Guinness, who calls cousins the Ale & Stout Guinnesses, was triumphantly returned by Whitechapel with the record majority of 16,455. This same constituency at two previous elections turned the Heir of Guinness down. The new House is frankly a plutocrats’ Parliament. So elated were the entire Royal Family that they went in a body to a multi-scened musical revue* directly after, the election—something Their Majesties and Sons and Daughter-in-law have not done since George V’s pneumonia (TIME, Nov. 18, 1929).

Old Bull At “The Old Bull” in Burnley with a glass of brownish medicine at the head of his bed lay, last week, “Uncle Arthur” Henderson, Scot MacDonald’s successor as Leader of the Labor Party, sick with a heavy cold. By some excruciating mix-up his local party headquarters had received word from Burnley’s ballot counters that “Mr. Henderson has been returned by a huge majority!”

Jubilant at this unexpected, glorious news, the party workers rushed to tell Uncle Arthur who sat up in bed, had his back gently slapped, his big paw shaken. Actually the sick leader had been defeated. His hard-swearing, quarter-deck-pacing opponent, Rear-Admiral Gordon Campbell, V. C. retired, Conservative, who commanded British “Mystery Q Ships” during the War, had won Burnley by 8,209 votes. At “The Old Bull,” when this terrible truth was known, party workers could not bring themselves to face the Chief.

Mrs. Henderson had to tell Uncle Arthur. She had to tell him also that other returns showed the Labor Party crushed to utter impotence (final returns gave Labor 52 seats in the present Parliament, compared to 287 in 1929 and 267 when Parliament adjourned). When beaten Leader Henderson had heard the worst he sighed, “I am sad and sorry.” Later he brightened, prophesied: “Before many months have gone the nation will be sadder and sorrier!”

Laborites Defeated in one of the most savage election massacres that ever humbled a great party included almost every Laborite of whom the U. S. public has ever heard: former Home Minister John Robert Clynes; former War Minister Tom Shaw who declared, “I can’t understand it!”; former First Lord of the Admiralty Albert Victor Alexander; former Minister of Health Arthur Greenwood; former Minister of Labor Miss Margaret (“St. Maggie”) Bondfield; famed female Trade Unionist Miss “Wee Ellen” Wilkinson; and Oliver Baldwin, Socialist son & foe of Conservative Leader Stanley Baldwin. Downward through the party, defeat was uniform. In municipal council elections, Conservatives made an early net gain of 144 seats; Liberals 21; Independents 36. Labor lost 201, net.

Left to head the Labor Party in Parliament (unless a “safe seat” is found for Mr. Henderson at a by-election) were a shrewd oldster and a smart youngster:

Oldster George Lansbury, when Commissioner of Works, built so many bright orange public bath houses that his London slum constituency returned him to Parliament last week despite the Conservative landslide.

Youngster Sir Stafford Cripps, who was Solicitor General in the last Labor Government, was called last week “the only Laborite with first-class brains elected.”

Lloyd George Safe-Though every other Lloyd George Liberal but one was defeated, Father David, Daughter Megan and Son Major Gwilym Lloyd George won their seats. With his party thus reduced to four M. P.’s, the former Prime Minister looked toward Labor. Friends declared it “inevitable” that he should join the Labor Party’s remnant, providing much needed brains. Since Mount Snowdon overlooks his constituency the spunky Welshman cried: “On the heights of Snowdonia the Liberal flag still flies.”

Other Liberals, the two factions who broke away from Mr. Lloyd George under Sir John Simon and Sir Herbert Samuel to support the National Government (TIME, Oct. 19), were uniformly successful in the General Election. Together they won 66 seats, assured Sir John and Sir Herbert places in the revised National Government which Scot MacDonald will soon announce.

Significance. Intangible but a tremendous factor was James Ramsay MacDonald’s personal election victory at Seaham Harbor. He and Daughter Ishbel were in the air flying to London when the Seaham Harbor count was announced: Candidate MacDonald 28,977 votes; Candidate Coxon (Laborite) 23,027; Candidate Lumley (Communist) 677.

Thus the Prime Minister’s majority was 5,273. Two years ago it was 22,097. But the lesser victory last week, against apparently hopeless odds, was infinitely the greater. In his own estimation Scot MacDonald was confirmed by Seaham Harbor as still a Laborite, though cast out of the Party. The moral force generated in a Scotsman by such a vindication is of utmost significance, will propel the harassed Prime Minister through many a difficulty, sustain him in his none too robust health.

Lunching in London last week J. Pierpont Morgan was seen to nod portentous agreement when a British speaker declared: “Of course we are in for a tariff. If we use it for bargaining purposes it may prove extremely useful.” This undoubtedly was the broad significance of the General Election. Britain, traditionally a free trader, will slip with her Conservative landslide into a policy of tariffs. But the British Isles remain isles. They must always import much. While adjusting her new tariff nicely to possibilities Mother Britain can bargain shrewdly with nations like the U. S., France and Germany, all eager to continue selling her as much as possible.

Pound 6 Dole. Apart from tariffs, the National Government was believed certain to place the pound on a stronger and perhaps stabilized basis. Later the Conservative element may dare again to cut the Dole—already cut by the National Government when first constituted (TIME, Sept. 21).

Snowden Chorus. That even the 9-to-1 Parliamentary victory of the National Government does not mean the end or destruction of the Labor Party appeared clearly from a study of the popular vote. On this basis Labor went down only two to one, sufficiently disheartening, but great parties have survived greater blows. Philip Snowden, because he has resigned from Parliament and the Exchequer, because he thinks of retiring into the House of Lords, uttered from detached heights last week these words:

“Millions of men and women have voted for candidates with whose general political views they were not in agreement on the sole ground of showing the world that Britain is determined to stand four-square and bring the nation through its difficulties. . . This is not the end of the Labor Party. It will rise again, but only with new leaders! . . . Britain’s position in the world will be immeasurably strengthened by this election.”

Millions on Bets-Stock exchange brokers declared that some $3,900,000 was won and lost on election bets called “majorities.” Viscount Rothermere alone was said to have won £100,000 ($388,000 at current exchange). Dutch bankers, convinced that Britain was going to the Laborite dogs, sold majorities heavily, lost most.

The system: Most brokers announced before the General Election that they thought the National Government would win a majority of 210 seats. Pessimists who “sold” (bet) one pound against this majority lost a pound for each seat that the National Government’s majority went above 210, and it went to 557. Optimists who “bought” won fantastic sums as the Government’s prodigious total swelled. For example a Miss Anne Simms, stock exchange typist, who bought one £5 unit, won £1,735 or over $6,000 on her $19.50 bet. For such bets Nov. 10 is settlement day. Numerous broker bankruptcies are expected.

*Cavalcade at Drury Lane, in which Playwright Noel Coward takes a champagne-elated heroine (Actress Mary Clare) from the Boer War through the World War and up to Depression in a series of dream and nightmare interludes, rose-tinted, bawdy, poignant, acid. His Majesty, who likes thrills, has been rumored about to knight Nerve-Tweaker Coward.