Labor "Bull"

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

Right Honorable Labor Members of Parliament lost their heads in a flush of rage last week, when the Conservative Government of Premier Stanley Baldwin introduced a long-threatened bill to curtail debate and force a vote within 16 days on the second reading of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Bill (TIME, May 9).* This procedure, cloture, is so seldom employed in England that the Laborites puffed and huffed with indignation. Their leader, John Robert Clynes,/- rose dark with wrath, declaring that the Opposition was being "insulted by the audacity of the Government" in proposing to cut short debate upon "a bill which is not only one of the worst pieces of legal draftsmanship on record, but moreover so mangled by amendments that the Government ought to redraft it entire . . . . " Conservatives shouted that the Laborites ought to cooperate in redrafting the bill, a suggestion which so enraged Mr. Clynes that he uttered an able if unconscious "bull." Cried he: "Asking the Opposition to cooperate with the Government is like asking burglars to cooperate with the police!" Chuckled delighted Conservatives: "Haw! By Jove . . . Burglars! Clynes calls his people burglars. . . ." Goaded, Mr. Clynes finally roared that the proceedings were "a Parliamentary farce," and strode from the House, followed by all Laborite M. P.'s. In their absence cloture was rushed through. Sober reflection caused Mr. Clynes to realize that he had overplayed drama into melodrama. Next day he and the Labor cohorts were back on the common-sense wooden benches of the House.

*A drastic measure designed to throttle and paralyze the trade unions should they ever attempt a repetition of the General Strike (TIME, May 10 to Nov. 29, 1926, et seq.)

/-In the absence of onetime Premier James Ramsey MacDonald.