"WE THREE"

Stanley Baldwin appears to have made a most excellent batch of his brief careers as Prime Minister. Before he assumed the office, he lost many American well-wishers by a tactless remark about the American attitude in regard to the British war debt. At home he has failed to start British business on the up-swing toward prosperity. His foreign policy has failed to reopen foreign markets; his internal fiscal policy has taxed England white in order to bring English exchange to par to take advantage of that American inflation which has not yet occurred; and as a last resource he has attempted to catch his country unawares with a protective tariff, thinking, perhaps, to replace almost non-existent imports with home products. While England probably did not question his sincerity and honesty, she has certainly begun to question his acumen.

Although Premier Baldwin has been the goat, the man who has brought British constitutional difficulties to a head, the coming of the crisis was only a matter of time. Since the break-down of Lloyd George's coalition government, the Conservatives and Liberals have been rocking more and more nearly to a balance; and with every rock the Labor party has stepped in from the outside and carried away an increasing number of split vote elections. The power of Labor grew tremendously under the impetus of the war. During the long and hard post-war period, people have seen unemployment spreading, they have seen no improvement of conditions under either the Coalition or the Conservative governments. Therefore even though trade union membership may have considerably diminished, sympathy with the Labor party and hope in its promises have increased. And hence the remarkable growth in power of a party not contemplated in the British Constitution.

Under the present state of affairs no work can proceed. For there is neither a recognizable governing party nor a recognized Opposition. What the reported conferences among the Liberal leaders and between Baldwin and the king will bring forth ought soon to be apparent. Whether it be some loose coalition or a reconstructed Conservative cabinet under a new leader, it can only prove the most temporary of make-shifts. The situation cannot be cleared up, however, until the permanent trouble is removed--until either one of the parties is outlawed, or a dual system, changed to meet the exigencies of a triangular competition.