A REAL STRATEGIC RETREAT

When Premier MacDonald signed the treaty with Soviet Russia early in August, political prognosticators termed the action "the first note in Labor's funeral march". Perhaps the metaphor was a bit premature, for certainly MacDonald was not yet dead. But if the storm of protest that arose immediately after the document was signed can be taken as a symptom, there can be little doubt that the Government was in a critical position.

MacDonald, however, was not a man to give up hope, and with brilliant statesmanship he was able to stem the tide of criticism with his accomplishment in other foreign fields. He brought Great Britain and France together, he put the Dawes plan into execution, and he was a moving power in the recent Geneva Conference which adopted the protocol of arbitration and international law.

For such accomplishments the nation could not refrain from applause, but under the applause a murmur of dissatisfaction with the Russian treaty could still he heard, and that murmur has not passed unnoticed by the Premier.

The Conservatives, who hoped to make stock of the Russian document, did not seem to have as keen an ear for the murmur as the person at whom the protest was directed, for as soon as the applause set in they were frightened into a policy of hopeful waiting. When the applause was to die down they hoped to stir the murmur into a growl and with a late fall campaign to bring sufficient pressure to bear upon the Government to force an election.

Now, at the height of the applause, comes a trivial issue and Parliament, which withstood the acid test of the Russian treaty, is dissolved by a drop of water. MacDonald modestly bows, acknowledges defeat, and hastens to blame the general election upon the Liberals; for all parties know that an election at the present time is distasteful to the people.

But no sooner had he bowed out of Parliament than he bowed into the annual convention of the Labor Party to start his campaign. And this campaign will be waged with applause still drowning out the murmur of the Russian affair, with the Conservatives unprepared, and with the Liberals undecided which way to turn, shouldering MacDonald's own responsibility for the unpopular election. Almost by coincidence a new electoral register comes into force on October 15, giving the Labor party with its far superior clerical machinery a distinct advantage.

MacDonald retires gracefully on a trivial matter. Perhaps two weeks more would have brought an issue not so trivial, necessitating a not so graceful retirement. He has called the next election at an unusually early date, and if he can keep the audience applauding, and the Conservatives and Liberals dallying, he may "arise again to speak the epilogue"; and the murmurs will have died away.