The municipal elections held all over England, except its London,
on Tuesday showed a general determination on the part of the electors to check the increase of expenditure which has made the rates intolerably high. The Labour Party, whose programme involves unlimited expenditure, naturally did badly at the polls. It put forward a large number of candi- dates, and the total gain of some forty seats was a poor return. It gained six seats in Birmingham, five each in Barnsley, Norwich and Sheffield, and four in Brighton. On the other hand, it lost four seats in Manchester — where the Con- servatives won a majority in the City Council — six in Liverpool, four in Birkenhead and five in Glasgow. The detailed results show that in most of the smaller industrial towns, where the vast majority of the ratepayers are working men and women, the Labour Party was decisively beaten. The ratepayers want economy and efficiency rather than the Social- istic millennium.
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