The Oxford Election The entry of the Master of Balliol
into the field as an Independent Progressive candidate in opposition to Mr. Quintin Hogg, and the retirement of the Liberal and Labour candidates to give him a straight fight, invest the Oxford City by-election with unexpected significance. Dr. Lindsay is himself a Socialist but undertakes, if returned, to accept no party whip. The election promises to be fought almost wholly on foreign policy, the Conservative candidate giving full support to Mr. Chamberlain, while Dr. Lindsay, without going so far as to contend that the Prime Minister took the wrong decision at Munich, holds that it was the mistaken foreign policy of the Government over a period of years that put Mr. Chamberlain in the position in which he found himself at the Four-Power meeting ; he sees no sign that the Government is pursuing any consistent foreign policy today. His own conviction is that the country must rearm for a specific purpose, the defence of democracy and freedom. On that ground the Master of Balliol's claim on the electorate is strong. Democracy needs defending not only against Germany but against forces that threaten and will increasingly threaten it at home. No man has put the case for democracy higher or more convincingly than Dr. Lindsay in his various writings, and the House of Commons would gain more-by the presence of a man who could put that case there than it would lose by the reduction of the Government's over- whelming majority by one. But Oxford will have a representative of more than average ability and distinction whichever candidate it elects.
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