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WALES AND THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1923 WHEN, in October 1923, Baldwin made his decision to call a general election on the issue of Protection, he began a process that led to the re-uniting of the two wings of Liberalism. In December 1923 the re-united Liberal party scored its last great electoral victory, a victory overshadowed by the fact that Labour remained the second largest party. In Wales in December 1923, however, the Liberal revival, in terms of seats won, was conspicuously absent. Whilst Sir Harry Webb regained the Cardiff East constituency from the Conservatives, and Caernarvonshire was won back from Labour by Goronwy Owen, these provided the only gains.1 On the debit side, Sir Alfred Mond lost Swansea West to Labour by 115 votes; and in South Cardiff Labour's victory over the Conservative brought their total representation in Wales to 21.2 The Liberals failed completely to regain those mining and indus- trial seats lost in 1918 and 1922. Why did the Welsh Liberals fail so conspicuously in December 1923? This failure can be explained to a considerable extent by two factors within the Liberal party: a weakness of party organization and morale, and, secondly, a failure to advocate a constructive radical policy that went beyond the chapel-politics of the pre-1914 period. The moribund organization of the Liberal Associations, especially in south Wales, was no new phenomenon. A recent article by Dr. Kenneth O. Morgan has shown how defeatism, demoralization and chaotic organization had already widely permeated Welsh Liberalism in the vital 1918-22 period.3 Thus, when a by-election occurred in Ebbw Vale in 1920, defeatism had already reached a level at which a Coalition Liberal Junior Whip, the Rev. Towyn Jones, could advise the Liberals not to contest the seat; no Liberal duly came forward.4 The Abertillery by-election of December 1920 found Liberal organization in the division moribund; indeed, except for this by-election, no Liberal appeared in Abertillery at a general election until 1929. The Liberal campaign in December 1920 was 1 The Liberals missed winning Pontypool by only 326 votes. The Labour candidate was Arthur Henderson. Jnr. His father, true to form, was defeated in Newcastle East by a Conservative-Liberal pact. a Kenneth O. Morgan. 'The Twilight of Welsh Liberalism: Lloyd George and the Wee Frees'. Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XXIV (May 1968). 389-405. *J. Towyn Jones to J. T. Davies. 14 January 1920, Lloyd George Papers. F/22/l/I (Quoted in Morgan, ibid., p. 390).