Parliament's Week

(British Commonwealth of Nations)

Parliament's Week

The Commons--

P: Could detect no trace of conscious irony or sarcasm in a remarkable defense of U. S. films by that peppery late Victorian, Colonel Josiah Clement Wedgwood, M. P. When a member casually remarked that U. S. films should be barred from England because so many of them are indecent, Colonel Wedgwood leaped up and shouted: "No sir! You are all wrong. Beware that you do not plunge us from the American whirlpool into the French cesspool! Perhaps I shouldn't put it like that. But let's get away from the idea that American films are immoral. Dull they may be. Sentimental, sloppy 'sob stuff' you do get from America. But immorality never.

"American morality on and off the films, is quite all right. They are the most straightlaced people in the universe. Anything that gets put over in America we shan't criticize from the standpoint of morality.

"The essence of the American film is the strong 'heman' who landed the goods, the self-made man who struggled to the top. We want more of that type. Let us have that sort of hero, rather than the dude who spends his time at the races or in dance halls, or the type of gentleman who never worked.

"I am shocked at some films. ... I actually have to walk out of the theatre sometimes. . . . But they are not American films--French and Italian mostly.

"Leave me my American films. Don't let us shut down the only stream of moral influence coming into this country."

P: Weighed carefully a startling prediction made in pungent fashion last week by famed Conservative Editor James Louis Garvin of the Observer,* who wrote ominously of Premier Stanley Baldwin's Conservative Cabinet: "The Diehards/- have jumped on the box seat of the Conservative coach and are whipping the team to the devil. The Cabinet's introduction of the trade union bill [TIME, Feb. 21, 28] which proposes to make a sympathetic strike illegal, virtually forbids picketing and isolates the civil service from the general labor movement, is the act of a Government riding for a fall. "

The Diehards' overweening confidence that the Government will secure a second term of office at the next general election will soon prove a fool's paradise. It's as plain as houses that at least 60% of the country will be against them."

P: Received notice from Premier Baldwin that his Cabinet will fulfill one of its major pre-election pledges by introducing, after the Easter recess, a bill enfranchising all women above 21, whereas 30 is the present minimum voting age for women.

Since 13,900,000 women will have the vote under the new law, as against only 11,800,000 male voters, British editors asked in alarm last week: "Will the flapper vote bring Great Britain a petticoat premier?"

P: Chortled when a backbencher "Wet" cried to famed feminist exponent of temperance Viscountess Nancy Astor, M. P.: "What does the noble lady know from experience of the effects of small beer? The noble lady should become a member for one month of the Ancient Order of Frothblowers and diligently observe their slogan: 'Gallup your beer with zest!'"

*Also editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Britannica .

/-Reactionaries like Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston S. Churchill and Secretary of State for India the Earl of Birkenhead.