Monday, Jul. 21, 1924

Parliament's Week

House of Commons. Premier MacDonald made a statement to the House upon the results of a visit which he recently made to Paris (see INTERNATIONAL).

P: Referring to the furore which a Government statement in the House of Lords (TIME, July 7) caused in Egypt, Premier MacDonald said that Premier Saad Zaghlul Pasha of Egypt would meet him during August for a discussion of the Anglo-Egyptian dispute over the Sudan. He assured the House that the Government was firm in its resolution not to quit the country.

P: House of Lords. Not much time has elapsed since the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Herbert Murray Burge, introduced to the House a bill to control consumption of alcoholic beverages by local option. The bill secured the support of the "dryasdust" Lord Astor; the Government also gave its support with a number of reservations.

During the past week, the Lord High Chancellor took his seat on the Woolsack* and their lordships debated the bill. From amid the encircling gloom arose Dr. Herbert Hensley Henson, whose style is the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Durham, 86th of those to hold that dignity. The Bishop, so the story ran, "jolted" his fellow Bishops by telling them: "Better a free Britain than a sober one." Such simple, wet words from a leader of the church militant had effect in defeating the bill by 166 to 50 votes. Their dry lordships continued to hold fast to their faith in the bill which they declared was not dead.

*The Woolsack is a red-covered cushion stuffed with wool. The first is said to have been placed in the House by Edward III to remind their lordships of the importance of England's wool trade.