1 JUNE 1929, Page 1

Mr. Baldwin's Nerve 'Mr. Baldwin continued the premeditated quietness of

his appeal to the end. On the day before the Election, for eicample, the Morning Post published a message from hirici which suinineil'up iill'his teaching.

"Buf it is exadtlibel` causiS there is so much still to do to secure the full benefit of what has been done that discontinuity of purpose and policy at this moment would be so grievous a waste of oppor-

tunity. It is not rash experiments and grandiime expedients that the country needs at this juncture,- but steady, unsensatiohal progress on well-approved lines; not strain and stimulants, but ease of mind and plain living." ,

We wrote recently of the boldness with which Mr. Baldwin has sustained his habit of understatement ; and indeed it is fairly describable as boldness—not of the sort that many of his followers recommended, but an unusual Con- fidence, entirely consonant with Mr. Baldwin's character, in the strong sense of the British people. He may have been right or he May have been wrong in his unwavering conviction, but it seems to us certain that if he has been right he will have succeeded in a fine attempt, to which we can recall no exact parallel, to save democracy from one of its most notorious dangers. He will have done, by nerve and unexampled hard work during the cam- paign, as much as any one man could do to discredit the political game of out-promising the makers of preposterous promises. If he has failed he has failed bravely and honourably.