permanent official of the Foreign Office, Mr. J. D. Gregory, in the absence of the Secretary of State, but it was asserted on good authority that Mr. MacDonald was fully acquainted with its contents and had authorised its despatch.

The publication of this letter created perhaps an even greater sensation than the original conclusion of the Treaty with Russia had done two or three months before. It was described as a "bombshell," since it seemed to render futile the whole Labour campaign on behalf of the Treaty. The Labour Party was somewhat reassured by the prompt issue by M. Rakovsky of a letter stigmatising the Zinovieff letter as a clumsy forgery," and offering to submit the question of its authenticity to an impartial tribunal. This constituted a challenge to the Foreign Office, which had obviously treated the letter as genuine. A number of members of the Cabinet (which had been kept in complete ignorance of the affair) immediately accepted M. Rakovsky's word, and by implication disavowed the Foreign Office Note. Mr. MacDonald himself, however, remained silent. In the speeches which he made on October 25 (Saturday), and the earlier part of October 27, he made no reference to the subject. Meanwhile Opposition speakers proclaimed jubilantly and without fear of contradiction that the Russian Treaty had been "blown to smithereens."

Mr. MacDonald at length threw a certain amount of light on the affair in a speech delivered at Cardiff on the afternoon of October 27. The supposed letter of Zinovieff-the "red" letter, as Mr. MacDonald called it-did not find its way into the Foreign Office till October 10, and was not put into the Department till the 14th. It was sent to him at Manchester on the 15th, and received by him on the 16th. On the morning of the 16th I minuted that the greatest care would have to be taken in discovering whether the letter was authentic or not. If it was authentic it had to be published at once, and in the meantime, while investigations were going on, the draft letter to Rakovsky would be prepared, so that when the authenticity was established no time would be lost in making our protest to the Soviet Government." This minute was received in the Department on the 17th. The first draft of the Government Note was sent to him on the 21st, but not received by him till the 23rd. On the 24th, he looked at the draft, and sent it back in an altered form, expecting that it would come back to him again with proof of authenticity, but instead it was published the same night. These were the only new facts that Mr. MacDonald communicated, to the accompaniment of praise of the Government for the prompt and business-like way in which it had dealt with the affair, and abuse of his opponents for circulating false

rumours.

Mr. MacDonald's statement showed him to be considerably at variance with those of his colleagues who, on seeing the letter in the Press, had expressed doubts of its genuineness, and had

accepted Rakovsky's repudiation without hesitation. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, still treated the authenticity as an open question, and talked of having the matter probed to the roots as soon as he returned to London. He seemed to be unaware how extraordinary his action appeared to the world. He pointed out that the task of controverting Bolshevist theory and ideas in England had hitherto been performed exclusively by members of the Labour Party. "If there is any menace in this Zinovieff letter," he said, "if it is authentic, then the one safeguarding Government is the Labour Government which has already handled the thing." When asked how this attitude. squared with support of the Russian loan, Mr. Macdonald resorted to general statements about the necessity of keeping Russia within the European state system.

Although Mr. MacDonald had declared that he had no fault. to find with the Foreign Office officials, yet his insinuation that they had acted independently of his instructions was hotly resented by Conservative speakers, who represented it as a grave slight on men who were not in a position to defend themselves. Labour speakers on their side sought to make capital out of the fact that the Daily Mail had boasted of having forced the Premier's hand by threatening to publish the Zinovieff letter, which had come into its possession by some illicit means. But they could not gainsay the fact that their leader, by picking a quarrel with Russia, had dealt a fatal blow at the Treaty, and so thrown away their trump card in the election.

If the Zinovieff "revelation" was injurious to the Labour prospects, it was disastrous to the Liberals. It made numbers of weak-kneed and wavering Liberals more than ever afraid of the "Socialist menace," and drove them to vote Conservative as the surest means of combating it. The swing of the pendulum was clearly discernible even before the election. During the closing days of the campaign Mr. Baldwin made a tour of South-East Lancashire, a district which had gone strongly Liberal at the last election, and was received everywhere with an enthusiasm which astonished him. The augury proved correct; as on so many previous occasions, this district provided an index to the feeling of the country as a whole.

Polling took place without incident on October 29, and resulted in a victory for the Conservatives beyond their wildest expectations. They gained altogether 161 seats-103 from the Liberals and 58 from Labour. Against this they lost only 6 seats-all to Labour. Thus they were 155 seats to the good on balance, and came back to Parliament with 413 members, a majority of 211 over the other parties combined. Labour won 16 seats from the Liberals and lost 9 to them, so that their representation in the new House was 151 against their previous 193. Of Liberal candidates only 40 secured election, and not a few of those only with the aid of Conservative votes given under the "pact." Six "Constitutionalists," one

Communist, one Irish Nationalist and three other independent members completed the new House.

The Conservative gains were distributed more or less evenly over the whole of the country. By a curious irony the conspicuous exception was the great stronghold of Conservatism, the Birmingham district, where all the Conservative majorities were reduced and one seat was actually lost. Conspicuous among the new Conservative members was Mr. Winston Churchill. The Liberal "casualties" affected equally the right and left wings of the Party; Mr. Pringle, a strong sympathiser with Labour, was ousted by a Labour candidate, and MajorGeneral Seeley, a vehement anti-Socialist, by a Conservative. To the general surprise Mr. Asquith, in spite of Conservative support, was defeated by his Labour opponent at Paisley. The only Liberal leaders who came back to the new House were Mr. Lloyd George, Sir A. Mond, and Sir J. Simon. Only one member of the Cabinet-Mr. Jowett, the Minister of Workswas defeated, but a number of under-Secretaries lost their seats. Of the eight retiring women members only the three Conservatives-Lady Astor, the Duchess of Atholl, and Mrs. Philipsonretained their seats, and they were joined by one Labour member, Miss E. Wilkinson.

The most striking fact which emerged immediately from the election results was the practical disappearance, at anyrate for the time being, of the Liberal Party from Parliamentary life. Such a result was wholly unexpected, and was not at all welcome to the Conservatives, who profited by it. It was due in part to the caprice of the ballot-box. Whereas nearly one vote in five had been cast for Liberal candidates, Liberal members in the House numbered less than one in fifteen. Even so, however, the Liberal vote in the constituencies had fallen by over a million and a quarter-from 4,262,264 to 2,929,571-while the Conservative vote had increased by over two millions-from 5,497,426 to 7,864.402 and the Labour vote by over a million-from 4,372,474 to 5,508,482. It was obvious that vast numbers of electors who in 1923 had voted Liberal on the tariff issue had this year voted Conservative on the anti-Socialism issue, and in this way, as was claimed by the Conservatives, expressed their resentment, along with members who had not voted at all at the last election, against the Liberal leaders for putting Labour into office and allowing it to remain there so long. Several of the defeated Liberals had been among the most effective speakers in the previous Parliament, and it was admitted on all hands that the new House was the poorer for their absence.

On October 31 the Air Ministry announced that Air Marshal Sir John Salmond had been selected to fill the post about to be created with effect from January 31 next of Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Air Defence of Great Britain. The creation by the Conservative Government in 1923 for the defence of the of such a command was in pursuance of the scheme drawn up

United Kingdom against air attack. The scheme embraced the formation of 52 squadrons, together with the necessary ground defences to be provided by the Army.

The verdict of the election having been unmistakable, the Cabinet at its next meeting on November 4 decided to resign at once. The King thereupon sent for Mr. Baldwin, who had returned to London from the country the same afternoon. Thus after an interval of less than a year the country again found itself under a Conservative Government with a clear majority in both Houses of Parliament.

Just before its resignation the outgoing Ministry issued the report of the Cabinet Committee which, conformably to the announcement of the Prime Minister, had been set up on October 31, to inquire into the authenticity of the Zinovieff letter. The Committee consisted of Mr. MacDonald, Lord Haldane, Lord Parmoor, and Mr. Henderson. They stated that, after hearing the departments concerned, they found it impossible on the evidence before them to come to a positive conclusion on the subject. The original letter had not been produced to or seen by any Government department, and action had been taken on what was not claimed to be more than a copy. In the short time available the Committee had been unable to obtain further light on the matter.

This inconclusive statement was the whole fruit of Mr. MacDonald's promised efforts to "probe to the roots" the matter of the Zinovieff letter. It could be variously interpreted as either exonerating or censuring the Foreign Office officials, and it left the public uncertain how far Mr. MacDonald identified himself with them. Nor was it calculated to heal the breach in Anglo-Russian relations which had been caused by the Foreign Office Note. Thus those who had expected that the Labour Government would bring about a real friendship between Britain and Russia were disappointed. In the matter of Russia, as in that of reparations, Mr. MacDonald had been in action-whatever he may have been in speech-the exponent rather of the Liberal than of the Labour policy, but a more fearless and conscientious exponent than any Liberal leader would have been likely to prove himself. In internal affairs also the Labour Ministry had done little more than keep the country going on the lines of the King's Speech introduced by Mr. Baldwin-a remarkable document which in a way portended as great a revolution in British politics as the advent of Labour to office. But Mr. MacDonald took in earnest what with the Conservatives was suspected of being mere window-dressing, and in his whole-hearted devotion to the cause of social reform set a standard which succeeding Governments, of whatever party, would not be able to ignore.

Among Mr. MacDonald's colleagues, two, Mr. Snowden and Mr. Thomas, left office with enhanced reputations. Mr. Snowden as Chancellor of the Exchequer had won the respect

and confidence of financial circles, and Mr. Thomas at the Colonial Office had shown great breadth of view, and in particular by his tact and good sense had contributed not a little to the successful settlement of the thorny question of the Irish Boundary Commission. The Labour administration had throughout maintained excellent relations with the Civil Service, and with the Court, and in these respects had refuted Mr. Churchill's charge that Labour was "unfit to govern." Closer contact with Monarchy had served to modify Labour prejudices against the institution, and it was remarked that at the election the Labour members who had held posts in the King's household were returned to Parliament with increased majorities.

CHAPTER V.

THE NEW GOVERNMENT.

WITHIN two days of receiving the King's summons, Mr. Baldwin had made a sufficient number of appointments to form a practically complete Cabinet. He gave important posts to three prominent members of the old Coalition Government, Mr. Austen Chamberlain becoming Foreign Secretary, Lord Birkenhead Secretary for India, and Mr. Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The last-named appointment gave offence in certain Conservative quarters, as did also the omission from the Ministry of Sir Robert Horne. The Exchequer had been offered in the first instance to Mr. Neville Chamberlain, but he had preferred to go back to his earlier office of Minister of Health. As finally constituted, the Cabinet contained six members of the House of Lords. A new departure was made. by leaving the Postmaster-General out of the Cabinet, and giving the post to a Minister who was less a politican than a business man.

On November 1 the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley was formally closed by its President, the Prince of Wales. Addressing an audience of several thousands which had gathered at the Stadium in spite of most inclement weather, he said that the hope expressed by the King in opening the Exhibition, that it would bring the peoples of the Empire to a better knowledge of how to meet their reciprocal wants and obligations, had been well fulfilled. The people of the home country had learnt from it the resources and possibilities of the Empire, and the people from overseas had gained not only a better knowledge of the manufacturing resources of this country, but also a more sympathetic understanding of the problems which faced the Empire in the social organisation, the development, and the defence of its lands. The fellowship established in connexion