WE WERE promised a “dirty election”, and the promise has unhappily been fulfilled. While Mr. Baldwin has been a notable exception, abuse has for the most part taken the place of argument in many of the speeches of the political leaders of all parties. It must be admitted that, in his election oratory, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has failed in the dignity demanded by his great position, but the greatest offenders against good taste have undoubtedly been Lord Birkenhead and Mr. Churchill. Lord Birkenhead’s attack on Sir Henry Slesser, the Solicitor-General, is simply outrageous. Sir Henry Slesser, who of course abhors revolution of any kind, suggested that reactionary politics and the failure to respond to the legitimate demands of the workers would make revolution far more likely than if a Labour Government were able to proceed towards its ideals by orderly and democratic methods. That is a legitimate contention which may or may not be accepted, but it certainly does not justify Lord Birkenhead in bidding Sir Henry Slesser to keep “his insolent threats to himself”. “Let them make a revolution if they dare” was the tone of the speech of this able and most dangerous politician, who apparently loves to remember that he was once Galloper Smith of the Ulster rebels, and to forget that he is the holder of high judicial office from whom self-restraint and a measure of courtesy may fairly be demanded. Lord Birkenhead’s references to the money earned by the Labour Party leaders, who include fellow-lawyers, Sir Patrick Hastings and Sir Henry Slesser, were vulgar and cheap, and his attempt to label Mr. Ramsay MacDonald with the outworn “Pro-German” label gives the measure of his political methods. Our own detachment from parties does not grow less as the election campaign proceeds, nor does our fear for the future of our country if the Birkenheads are again admitted to the Councils of the State. We deplore the apparently organized Labour rowdyism at Conservative and Liberal meetings, but the hooliganism of the highly placed is an infinitely greater national menace than the hooliganism of the mean streets.