The Labour Party's decline was shown by the defeat of
Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in the East Woolwich by-election on Wed- nesday. Captain Gee, V.C., the Coalition Unionist candidate, won the seat by a majority of 683, polling 13,724 votes to Mr. MacDonald's 13,041. Mr. Crooks, the late Labour member, had been returned without opposition at the General Election. The Labour Party assumed, therefore, that its candidate would easily retain the seat for this purely industrial constituency. The Independent Liberals gave Mr. MaeDonald their fullsupport; the Westminster Gazette assured the public that Mr. MacDonald was certain to win. Nevertheless, Captain Gee, who was a pit-boy and gained his commission by bravery in the field, per- severed with his forlorn hope and was rewarded. Some of the electors, no doubt, remembered Mr. MacDonald's deplorable attack on Lord Grey of Fallodon at the outset of the war and his dealings with the German Socialists in 1917. The mobbing of Captain Gee by some imported advocates of " direct action " was a further disadvantage for Mr. MacDonald. But the main reason why the Labour Party lost the seat was because its violent tactics have alienated many of its supporters.
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