Act II

(British Commonwealth of Nations)

Chinese think ten days not too long for the performance of a tragedy; but Londoners were ready to cry "Enough!" last week when the second act of a great British drama was protracted through four days. Theatre: the stately Palace of Westminster where Lords and Commons assembled beside the Thames. Players: all the chief Ministers of Premier Baldwin's Conservative Cabinet and virtually all the major protagonists of the Liberal and Labor opposition. Second act: the second reading of the Government's drastic Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Bill (TIME, May 9 et ante) --a bill designed to put British labor into a legal straight jacket strong enough to prevent the recurrence of the General Strike (TIME, May 10 to Nov. 29, 1926).

As the curtain figuratively rises, Attorney General Sir Douglas Hogg stands up and moves a second reading. Correspondents note his erect, judicial poise, wonder how long he will keep cool under the barrage of jeers which Laborites will soon make hot. Racing pencils jot names of major characters and their more and more pungent speeches as the drama plays on and upward to crescendo:

Sir Douglas Hogg: ". . . The Government, then, rests its case for the bill upon four axioms: one, that the general strike is illegal. ..."

Laborite Will Thorne of West Ham (interrupting) : "That is a lie! ... The Attorney General is telling a lot of lies!"

Right Honorable James Henry Thomas, famed "Balance Wheel of British Labor": "We deny categorically that the General Strike was illegal. . . ."

Sir Douglas Hogg: ". . . The General Strike was illegal and the Government has therefore made the first axiom of this bill that no one must suffer for refusing to participate in a second general strike. . . . Two: intimidation of non-strikers was illegal and must be prevented by law. . . ."

Laborite John R. Clynes, generalissimo of the Labor party in the absence of onetime Labor Premier James Ramsay Macdonald in the U. S.: "I rise to protest that this bill would prevent workers on strike from doing anything to make their strike a success. . . . Why this Government solicitude for 'Blacklegs' ["Scabs"]? . . . This bill would make it illegal to even make faces at a 'Blackleg'. . . ."

Right Honorable John Joseph ("Jumping Jack") Jones, Laborite wit: "It's a hog's bill!"

Sir Douglas Hogg (angry, flushed): ". . . Third axiom: the law must protect individual workers from compulsion to contribute to a political fund. . . ."

Several Laborites: "We are the poor man's party, and you want to strangle us !. . . When Macdonald was Premier he didn't sell peerages to get party funds. . . ."

Sir Douglas Hogg: "Fourthly and finally, the Government considers it axiomatic that the bill must afford protection to Civil servants who must not be intimidated from unswerving loyalty to the State."

Laiborite Thomas Griffiths of Pontypool (shaking his fist at the Ministerial Bench): "You wasters! . . . You blackguards! . . . You rotters! . . . You thieves! . . . Your kind put my father in jail during the big strike. . . ."

J. J. Jones: "They're liars! . . . The Attorney General is a liar from his head to his foot! . . ."

Pandemonium. . . . Eventually Speaker John Whitley caused the Right Honorable "Jack" Jones to be ejected from the House.

During the first days of debate only one legislative advance was made. It became clear that the Government's vigorously worded clause punishing men striking contrary to the public weal would have to be supplemented by a similar clause punishing employers who lock their men out with similar effect. Originally the Government contended, rather lamely, that employers simply do not lock put their men against the public interest; but when the partisan aspect of this view was flayed on all sides in open debate, Sir Douglas Hogg was obliged to promise redrafting of the bill.

On the third day Premier Stanley Baldwin, reputedly in poor health, spoke for the first time:

The Premier: (after rehearsing the background and the bill at length) : "... The Government's mandate for introducing this bill was tha General Strike. . . . Things have drifted too far. The activities of the trade unions are shifting from the industrial to the political sphere, in which some of them are controlled by the Communist party. . . .

Several Laborites: "Name them! . . . Name a single Communist union! . . . Liar! . . . Withdraw!"

The Premier: "I am not going to give names, nor shall I withdraw. . . .

Laborite John Beckett of Gateshead, usually decorous: "That's the most dishonest thing that has ever been done in this House. . . . Admit you're a liar, Baldwin!"

Speaker Whitley (above angry Conservative shouts): "The Right Honorable Member from Gateshead must withdraw his interjection."

Laborite Beckett: "I won't withdraw it! I can only say that he [pointing at the Premier] has told lies." (Upon a motion from Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill the House voted to expel Laborite Beckett for five days.)

The Premier (as ever, imperturbable): "I believe that the more this bill is known to the country, the more it will be supported. . . . Any bill passed just after the General Strike might have been vindictive, but this bill is not. . . . We have waited. . . . -

Laborite Shouts: "Just you wait till the next general election!"

The Premier (defiant): "Make this bill the principal plank of your program at the general election if you choose, and we will defeat you, even though your slogan be 'Let London Walk.'"

Laborite Tom Shaw (interjecting) : "I may say, as the Secretary of State for India once said, in one of his sober moments--" (Pandemonium, furious shouts from friends of the Secretary, the Earl of Birkenhead, a discriminating, not a swizzling drinker.)

Speaker Whitley (soothing) : "No doubt the Right Honorable Member merely desired to imply that the Secretary of State for India sometimes expresses himself extravagantly." (Laughter).

David Lloyd George (launching the serious Liberal attack upon the bill): "The details of this measure are dangerous and in some in stances obscure [proceeding to review them]. ... It is my final conviction that had this bill been law last year, it would not have shortened the General Strike by one hour. . . ."

Philip Snowden, onetime Labor Chancellor of the Exchequer, sar donic cripple, brilliant economist (TIME, April 25) : "They who have proposed this bill are hypocrites, and they are fools who by rowdy ism have led this debate to such a fatuous conclusion. . . . As for general strikes, they are general nonsense because they are not effective. . . . But there is no politi cal immorality in attempting to coerce a government by a general strike. [Barking his words] Governments exist to be coerced! . . . As for this bill--Hrr! --it is a loud needle for the Communist gramophone. ... It will help the Communists to breed sedition, and gag a appeal to the better natures of everyone else. . . ."e

As the debate closed the Conservative majority, of course, voted the bill past its second reading, a foregone conclusion. Britons, habitually close followers of their legislators, deemed this the most dynamiteful debate since the days of the great General Strike. They saw the lines of class struggle more sharply drawn than ever be fore in the House of Commons. They knew that Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill did not overstate the gravity of the coming struggle when he said, later in the week: "A battle has been joined in which we shall be fighting probably for the remainder of our lives."