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Of the Laborites whom he calls Socialists, Mr. Baldwin said−prefacing his remarks with a rebuke to "Conservative Defeatists"−"I have no use in any party for waverers, grousers or people with cold feet. I have little sympathy with the kind of stuff I have seen recently in the [Conservative] press, 'socialism is setting the pace; something must be done.'
"Socialism at present is setting very little pace. The Socialists are waiting. They are trusting to win less on their program than by lulling us to sleep on our apathy. And while they have been waiting, the bold spirit of Mr. Lloyd George has jumped in. ...
"His feet are no longer on the ground. . . . He has gone up into the ethereal blue in an airplane and has flung across the sky the smoke of 'We can conquer unemployment.' "
Obviously there is nothing constructive−and little that is even destructive−in these neat but lifeless words. In London members of the august Carlton Club (100% Conservative) have grown so alarmed at the Prime Minister's lack of leadership that, stimulated by Baron Younger, they were making up last week a private electioneering fund of £100,000 ($500,000) which the club will spend, quite on its own, for posters.
Other Issues. Apart from "Unemployment" the major issues concern: 1) "Foreign Policy" (Laborites and Liberals charging that the Conservatives have committed the supreme folly of antagonizing the U.S., especially about Naval Limitation) ; 2) "Economy" (the Conservatives being unable to show that they have kept their 1924 campaign promise to reduce administrative expenditures by £10,000,000); 3) "Tariffs or Safeguarding" (Laborites being out-and-out free traders, with Conservatives muddled, hedging and split on the degree of protection they favor); 4) "Farmers' Grievances" (a most confused issue, as in the U.S. But last week the traditional maxim that the British farmer will always vote Conservative was badly shaken by certain technical by-election results which seemed to indicate that even they are growing tired of "muddling through" with Stanley Baldwin.
Who Next Prime Minister? A straight victory for Labor would mean James Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister, unless his seriously impaired health should force to the fore James Henry Thomas, famed "Balance Wheel of British Labor," potent trade unionist. In the event of a Conservative victory, the "mud dling through" tactics of Stanley Baldwin would almost certainly be hailed as a stroke of genius, and he would stay on at No. 10 Downing Street.