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Shrewd, the Mosley outburst struck responsive chords in the Labor Party rank and file. At least 50 thoroughly Socialist M. P.'s began to talk as though they would support Sir Oswald. He prepared a motion (practically a vote of censure against Messrs. MacDonald and Snowden) for submission to a "private Party meeting" of all Labor M. P.'s. There was talk— and not loose talk either—that the Government's slim majority in the House of Commons had been whittled down to the snapping point.
Leaders Quarrel. What made the mouse-squeak truly terrifying to Elephant MacDonald was a quarrel he had had earlier in the week with David Lloyd George. The bantamweight Liberal leader controls the greater part of a batch of votes on which the life of the Cabinet depends.* He demanded that Mr. MacDonald put through a bill giving the Liberal Party representation in parliament proportional to the number of Liberal votes at the next election.† Scot MacDonald said no to the Welshman. Mr. Lloyd George threatened his worst. At just this moment the mouse squeaked.
Still greater is the paradox that Labor derived 289 M. P.'s from 8,331,480 ballots whereas a slightly larger number of Conservative ballots (8,591,052) returned a slightly smaller number of Conservative M. P.'s (260).
Such results are due to the fact that a Labor M. P. may win his seat by 10,000 votes against a Liberal with 6,000 and a Conservative with 9,000. In this case the 15,000 votes cast for other candidates than the man who won with 10,000 are simply wasted. In efficient Germany, on the contrary, each "surplus vote'' is totalled up to the credit of the party for which it is cast. Then if the German Socialist Party, for example, has several million such votes to its credit, the party chiefs are allowed to name and send to the Reichstag a number of deputies proportional to this surplus. Thus, in a German election, "every vote counts."**
House Master Henderson. At the meeting of 239 Labor M. P.'s to debate Sir Oswald's motion against leaders MacDonald and Snowden, they were defended by jovial "Uncle Arthur" Henderson, Foreign Minister and a tolerably good Socialist.
Spitfire speeches by Sir Oswald and his followers made "Uncle Arthur" glower for once. Jumping into the fray he threatened, in the Prime Minister's name, that the Cabinet would resign if the party censured Mr. MacDonald. Potent, this threat sobered many of the malcontents. Several begged Sir Oswald to withdraw his motion. White-lipped, encouraged by Lady Mosley's confident smile, he stood his ground, demanded a vote.
Whatever the Bright Young Couple expected, they were snowed under 210 to 29.
But the 29 is a startling figure. Heretofore 15 has been the maximum number of Labor rebel votes cast against Mr. MacDonald. Mouse Mosley's squeak nearly doubled, last week, the intraparty opposition to Scot MacDonald. If the Prime Minister and Mr. Lloyd George had continued their quarrel, the 29 votes would have been enough to more than wreck the Cabinet, but rumors flew that the Liberal leader—changeable as a weathercock— had veered around again to Mr. MacDonald's aid, possibly seduced by some secret political trade unrevealed last week.
* Lately several Liberal M. P.'s have refused to vote as ordered by Leader Lloyd George.