campaign will be aimed at winning that party the balance of power in the House of Assembly. In other words, the NLP has already admitted defeat.

First of all, the NLP would have no voice in the Upper House because it would have to become either the Government or the official Opposition in order to appoint senators. Secondly, this choosing of a position by the NLP has to be election chatter because we doubt that any serious person thinks the NLP will increase its one current seat in the House in any significant way.

Mr. Delano Ingham, who has been working on the NLP's campaign strategy, says that five NLP MPs would hold the balance of power. Mr. Ingham is apparently attempting to convince people that a vote for the NLP can and will matter. As it stands now, many people look askance at the NLP because they know that a vote for the NLP is a wasted vote with the possible exception of Hamilton East where NLP leader Mr. Gilbert Darrell does get elected.

Mr. Ingham also seems to be making an excuse in advance for the reality that the NLP is unlikely to be able to find a full slate of candidates. Thus he advances the slight hope of holding the balance of power in a new House rather than any possibility of being the Government or being in official Opposition.

The reality is that the next election will make or break the National Liberal Party. The party was born of a state of chaos in the Progressive Labour Party when the more conservative members of the PLP broke away and formed the National Liberal Party. Of the MPs who left the PLP and formed the NLP, only Mr. Gilbert Darrell, the NLP leader, continues to hold his House seat. If the NLP were to lose Mr. Darrell, it would be in serious difficulty.

If it does not win more seats when an election is held then the NLP will also be in an impossible position. It seems that the NLP now has trouble finding candidates because no one likes to be a guaranteed loser.

As of now, the NLP is virtually a one-man party and it cannot stay that way and remain viable. We do not see very much hope for the NLP to gain more seats at an election except the slight possibility of a seat in Smith's South. In that district Mr. Graeme Outerbridge has worked very hard for the NLP. He has picked up votes in successive elections because voters were unhappy with the UBP representation and that situation may well not have changed with the recent UBP primary. Other than that, we see no real hope for an NLP success.

Both major parties will be pleased to see Mr. Ingham say: "We would think carefully about running in areas where it would split the vote.'' In its early days the NLP took votes almost exclusively from the PLP. In at least one constituency, the votes for an NLP candidate, Mr. Charles Jeffers, caused the election of Mr. Robert Barritt and Mr. Lawson Mapp of the UBP. However, at the last election it did seem that the NLP took its votes from the ruling UBP.

That was certainly true in Smith's South where the NLP did well in a UBP stronghold.

The truth is that if the NLP cannot elect a significant number of candidates it will be unable to go on. We think it is unlikely to go on.