Parliament's Week

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

The Commons --

P: Manifested such extreme early spring lassitude that one session was delayed last week for almost an hour until a quorum could be obtained.

P: Roused from this torpor when Lady Nancy Astor, famed "First Woman M. P.", defended vigorously a bill designed to prevent the Government from discharging women civil employes as soon as they marry. Said Lady Astor:

"As for women being less efficient after marriage, I can assure you that a woman can have at least two* children and still remain more efficient than most Right Honorable members. It takes a curious type of mind to say that woman's place is in the home. Men don't say that unless women are in the higher positions. When a woman is a charwoman or a cook nobody says her place is in the home."

Eventually the bill was voted down 84 to 63.

P: Learned with approval that the Trades Union Congress, sitting at London last week, had overwhelmingly voted down an extremist resolution that another general strike be called in protest against the Government's now pending Anti-Strike Bill (TIME, Feb. 21, 28, April 25).

P: Expressed sincere relief at news that onetime Labor Premier James Ramsay Macdonald, now visiting the U. S. (TIME, April 18), was rapidly recovering at Philadelphia from his attack of tonsilitis (TIME, Jan. 25), while his daughter, Ishbel Macdonald, pinch-spoke-- for her father before various gatherings, which he had promised to address.

*Lady Astor bore a son to her first husband, Robert Gould Shaw; has borne four sons and one daughter to her second husband, Viscount Astor.