Oswald & Oliver

Then let's rejoice with loud fal, lal, fal, lal, la!

That Nature wisely does contrive (fal, lal, la!)

That every boy and every gal

That's born into the world alive

Is either a little Lib-er-AL

Or else a little Con-ser-va-TIVE.

Fal, lal, la!

--lOLANTHE

Thus warbled the muse of Gilbert & Sullivan in the great Gladstonian days of Liberalism.* But Fate, snickering, was even then implanting a new virus, "Laboritis," in the babes. Two infants, born to Conservative parents at the close of the Gladstonian era, grew up to political manhood, and last week vitally vexed their sires.

Baldwin & Mosley. Premier Stanley Baldwin, respected Conservative, saw his son Oliver electioneering at Smethwick near Birmingham in behalf of a Labor candidate. Worse still, this "Laborite" was Oswald Mosley, son-in-law of that late bulwark of the peerage, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. The "Oswald-Oliver" by-election campaign raised a stir which amounted to a scandal throughout England (TIME, Dec. 27), and then last week, the polling brought a climax. Oswald Mosley was elected a Laborite by 16,077 votes; only 9,495 going to J.M. Pike, his Conservative opponent while the Liberal candidate fail to poll one-eighth of all the votes cast and so forfeited his elector deposit of -L-150 ($730).

Pronouncements. Turncoat Oswald Mosley, a Conservative M. P. four years ago, then an Independent, now a Laborite, said: "The result shows that the [Baldwin Conservative] government has entirely lost the confidence of the country and has now no mandate to govern."

The defeated Conservative candidate, J. M. Pike, scathingly recalled how Oswald Mosley and his wife Lady Cynthia (Curzon) had poured out Curzon gold in the campaign, adding: "The electorate seemed to have be hypnotized by Mosley's worldly possessions. The main lesson of the election is that the conquest the Labor party by wealthy aristocrats has begun."

In the last moments of the campaign the Premier's son, Oliver Baldwin, roundly declared: "England is nearer to revolution than ever before!" To this Premier Baldwin replied through his daughter Betty, who drove the Conservative candidate about Smethwick in her open two-seater, electioneering in his behalf. Said she: "I hope what little I could do counteracted to some extent my brother's words."

Significance. Smethwick always goes Laborite. This year it merely went Laborite a little harder than usual. That meant nothing. But it is significant that two rising young politicians like Oliver and Oswald have decided that their chance for a career lies among Laborites. A generation ago they would have turned Liberal. Now that the Liberal party has dwindled to a nothing, the verse of Gilbert & Sullivan must be re-written Today the politicians who matt in England are either "LaborITE or "Con-ser-va-TIVE."

*From 1868 to 1894, between the first Cabinet of Disraeli (Con.) and the last Cabinet of Gladstone (Lib.), every Conservative Cabinet was followed by a Liberal and vice versa.