Parliament's Week

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations.)

The Cabinet. To a party of Labor women at Albert Hall, Premier MacDonald said: "I still claim that what the Labor Government did after finishing a study of the experts' report --namely, taking the initiative in announcing to the world that the report should be put into operation en bloc --was the right thing to do and that if that course is pursued Europe will have a new chance of finding its feet. "Germany, France, ourselves, Italy, Belgium--none of us--can afford to go into details now. It's all together --the whole report and nothing but the report. If in working it out we find an impossibility, then by common sense still remaining to us we shall be able to adjust conditions. "And I beg of every nation concerned to follow the line we have taken, to take the whole report, to put it heartily into operation and to do its level best to carry out the obligations imposed by it and then to trust to the sense of justice of the world to see that right is done in the end." House of Commons. The Conservative Party's motion (TIME, May 12) condemning the abolition of the McKenna duties was defeated by 317 to 252 votes. The debate was dull-- except for the use of the prohibited word "lie" by Captain Terrel, Conservative, which brought him into conflict with the Speaker. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden also stirred the House by an unusually "acrid and ironical" speech. P: The Labor bill for the nationalization of the mines was defeated by 264 to 168 votes. It was the first definitely Socialistic measure to be introduced and was of major importance. The Government, however, stated that it was in disagreement with some of the articles of the bill and it was allowed to stand as a private member's measure; thus its defeat in no way affected the position of the Government. Liberals and Conservatives joined forces to defeat the measure. Ex-Premier Lloyd George was loudest in denouncing it, declaring that it favored but one class. Sir Douglas Hogg, Conservative, said it was "deliberately devised to carry class warfare, not of one class against another, but of one class against the community."