GREAT BRITAIN: Nigger Election

In the chaste, cream-paneled Cabinet Room at No. 10 Downing St. last week His Majesty's Government met jovially to plan what some of them called their "nigger election."

The war in Ethiopia had just driven from Leadership of Britain's Labor Party that uncompromising pacifist, "Old George" Lansbury. With invincible stubbornness Mr. Lansbury remained unmoved by the frantic pleas of practical Labor politicians of the old guard. Said they, in effect: "Don't you see, George, that the Government has whipped people up into such a lather against Italy that Labor daren't oppose sanctions, even if they mean war?" This Mr. Lansbury could see clearly enough. Several hundred London stockbrokers and clerks last week mobbed Sir Oswald Mosley's British Fascist news-youths in Throgmorton Street, seized their papers and burned them, knocked off the helmets of London bobbies who tried to intervene. At Cardiff the captain and crew of an Italian steamer were driven below decks by brawny longshoremen who swarmed aboard and plastered every door and hatchway with posters reading "Down With The Fascists! Hands Off Ethiopia!" Between the strata of middle-class stockbrokers and dock workers a great section of Britons had been more or less aroused last week to one of their characteristic hates. But the ruling class, "the families," remained serene for the time being and, as represented in His Majesty's Government, alert to seize their political opportunity.

It was time to hold a snap election. The Labor Party split with a loud crack last week when Pacifist Lansbury resigned as Leader, declaring: "I personally cannot see any difference between mass murder organized by the League of Nations and mass murder. ... I have passed my seventy-sixth year, and younger men may carry on." In, as Leader of Labor pro tern, stepped colorless, unimaginative Major Clement Attlee, an acceptable parliamentary wheelhorse, just the man to lose a General Election. In disgust left-wing British Laborites, the small but vigorous Independent Labor Party, manifestoed: "The real issue lies solely between two imperialisms in Africa—British Imperialism and Italian Imperialism. Workers, beware! Sanctions may develop into war and a conflict between imperialisms is not worth the life of a single worker."

Millions for Sanctions— This was quite above most British voters' heads, and the Cabinet knew it. By the time His Majesty's Government had risen last week, as usual without intimating to the public any of their august decisions, leading correspondents, who had been sucking on their Cabinet pipe lines, were flashing crisp dispatches:

New York Herald Tribune's Joseph Driscoll: "The general election will be held about Nov. 28. ... It is probable that thereafter Winston Churchill will return to the Cabinet in connection with the intended rebuilding of the British Navy."*