On the whole, the Government may be satisfied. They are
growing old, and Governments in their old age-generally have some very inconsiderate, if not brutal, onslaughts made upon them at by-elections. There was no trace of this at Northampton, though it is largely an industrial constituency famous for its boot factories. Colonel Malone has had a strange career of which the strangeness is perhaps not yet all told. After doing excellent service in the War he became a Coalition Liberal. In 1919 he visited Russia and then joined the Socialists. Continuing his leftward course, he next became a Communist and acted as one of the principal interpreters (or we might say, misinterpreters) of the Chinese Nationalists. From that point he began to rebound towards the right. At present he professes to be a sobered Socialist.
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