Mar. 15. was not to be expected that the Conservative vote of ce would be passed. The Liberal Party were known beforehand to be against it on the free trade issue. But the fact of its being moved is significant enough. A vote of censure is a very grave rarely employed. Mr. Stanley Baldwin ig the last man to resort to it without the most careful thought and full conviction that public testimony to the displeasure felt by an important sertion of the nation at the Govermment's failures had become necessary. In this connection it be recalled that the Conser-votives actually represent the largest body of voters in the nation. Mr. Snowden's denunion of what he called "a conspiracy" to discredit the Labour Government sounds like mere ill temper. No effort on the part of its opponents could more discredit the Government than the stern facts that unemployment has risen by nearly fifty per cent. since it came into power, and that its first Budget shows an increased expenditure of nearly £55,000,- 000, So that with no additional prosperity to the country, rather indeed the reverse, it is cole lated that some £25,000,000 must be added to its already monstrous taxation, These facts intensify the interest with which the prospect of a general election in June received. Since Parliament reassembled in the autumn, the Government has had to come down to earth out of the intoxicating atmosphere born Mr. Snowden's success at The Hague and Mr. MacDonald's theatrical visit to-America and while the hard facts of domestic litigation were still a thing of the future. With every wish to be fair, it is difficult to see much, if any, success in the Government's handling of those facts. The country still waits for the promises made in opposition to mature, and Ministers continual-take refuge in silence. Now
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.