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Henry Mond and Jenny Lee. Britain's most potent industrialist, Lord Melchett, saw his son, the Hon. Henry Mond, capture a seat for the Conservatives last week, by 3,000 plurality, whereas in 1924 the same seat went to another Conservative by a 9,000 majority. This bad news for Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was nothing, however, compared to that which he soon heard from North Lanarkshire, Scotland, where an immemorially Conservative seat was being fought for by Lord Scone, son of the Earl of Mansfield, a Scottish grand seignieur. Daring Laborites sent against Lord Scone pretty Miss Jenny Lee, 24, daughter of a coal-miner, "a dad who never in all his life earned more than three pounds [$15] a week." As a graduate with highest honors from the University of Edinburgh, Jenny Lee, who is entitled to practice law but teaches school instead, proved a most formidable antagonist, took the seat from Lord Scone by nearly 7,000 majority. Connoisseurs observed that of the ten female M.P.'s the only one possessed of both youth and beauty is now the Right Honorable Jenny Lee. As a whole the results of last week's five by-elections were considered, when viewed in the light of local conditions, a great blow to the Conservatives, a good showing for Labor and a brilliant one for the Liberals. Without the yardstick of a knowledge of local conditions the result might seem quite otherwise, for Conservatives won two seats, Liberals two, and only Jenny Lee won a seat for Labor. The real story is told however, by the betting odds (see above) which last week for the first time showed that the betting connoisseurs expect the Laborites to win more seats than the Conservatives.
Unemployment. In electioneering on the major issue of unemployment, the Labor Leader, James Ramsay MacDonald, is promising nowadays into many a microphone that if returned to the Prime Ministry, which he held in 1924, he will nationalize coal and related industries, and operate them to provide work at a living wage for the jobless. Meanwhile jaunty David Lloyd George, the Welsh Wizard of Liberalism, waves his empty silk hat and promises (TIME, March 25) to conjure out of it enough borrowed money to keep all the unemployed busy on road building and public works for five years. The steady-going fellow with the umbrella is Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, imperturbable leader of the Conservatives. He has spent all his life "muddling through" and has got on well enough. Just now he seems to have no very definite program; but, unlike many of his Conservative followers, he is not worried about that. Last week he produced nothing better than a few slings and arrows hurled higgledy-piggledy at Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Lloyd George.
Addressing a rally of 20,000 Conservatives in Leicester, the man with the umbrella observed, "As Lloyd George himself says, his scheme is as sound as the Welsh mountains. They are celebrated for their scenery. They probably afford pasturage for a few goats. ... To put his scheme into effect would require a Dictator. . . . A Dictator might do it. But we are not going to work under a Dictator."