MACDONALD STANDS FAST

The resignations of Viscount Snowden and two of his colleagues from the British Nationalist government could hardly have been unexpected after the results of the Ottawa Conference had demonstrated the control which the Conservative party possesses and proposes to exercise over the nation's tariff policy. In a trenchant and bitter denunciation of the Conservatives, Viscount Snowden has warned Prime Minister MacDonald that he has become little more than a "cat's paw" to the high tariff group, that such a policy is likely to be fatal to British trade and to international peace, and that the crisis for which the Nationalist Government was created has now been successfully passed.

It is the latter claim, and the demand for return to government by party responsibility that justly deserve closest attention. Last fall an anxious nation placed the present ministry in power for the sole purpose of presenting a strong, non-partisan front to the imminent national financial difficulties attendant on a world-wide depression. It can no longer be reasonably maintained that that crisis is not past. But the Prime Minister justifies his continuation in office by indicating the need for a similar unified government in face of the pressing international problems of reparations, disarmament, and currency.

There is apparently justice and sincerity on both sides. But it cannot well be denied that Mr. MacDonald is in a wholly anomalous situation. To remain at the head of a government, whose commercial policy is definitely opposed to his own, can offer the Prime Minister little save personal and political discomfiture. That he chooses to follow thin course is the best possible testimony not only of the sincerity of his belief that the National Government is best fitted to meet the crises but also of his patriotism.