Parliament's Week

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

HOUSE OF COMMONS. On the front opposition bench there arose onetime Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald to demand a vote of censure upon the Government for its mismanagement of the coal industry problem and its neglect of the unemployment situation.

Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, President of the Board of Trade, rose from his seat on the Government bench to answer for the Government. He got no further.

Immediately bedlam was let loose. Angry Laborites chorused: "We want Baldwin! The Prime Minister! We want a responsible Minister! We want to know what the Government is doing and the President of the Board of Trade is not the Minister to give the answer! Baldwin! Baldwin!! BALDWIN!!!"

Throughout the caterwaul Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, pale-faced and tightlipped, sat imperturbably on the treasury bench. Finally, the speaker said that he was under the impression that the proponents of the censure motion wanted a reply.

"Yes," came the answer, "but we want a responsible Minister!"*

"Dave" Kirkwood, irrepressible Laborite, then shouted: "This isn't a boy's job; it's a man's job!" After the momentary merriment had died down, he suggested a motion that Sir Philip, who was still standing, be not heard. The speaker dissented and disorder again broke out. The speaker then ordered an adjournment of an hour and the mace was removed, signifying that the session was ended.

When the House reassembled Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister again rose to reply Ito the Laborite attack. Prime Minister Baldwin sat, as calmly as ever, with his feet on the treasury table. Again rose the cries "We want Baldwin! We want the organ-grinder, not the monkey!"

Once more the speaker rose, said:

"As the honorable members apparently do not desire the debate to proceed under the standing orders, I adjourn the House." Once more the mace was removed and once more the M. P.'s trooped out. As Mr. Baldwin walked out there were hisses and booes and cries of "coward!"

William Clive Bridgeman, First Lord of the Admiralty, announced to the assembled commoners that the Government has decided to "about ship" as regards its naval construction program. He said that two of the three cruisers ordered to be laid down this year would not be proceeded with, owing to "the situation disclosed at the Geneva Naval Conference." The announcement was received by prolonged cheering in all parts of the House.

P: The Prime Minister on the following morning walked into the reading room in the press gallery, there to hold a conference with the Parliamentary reporters. As he strode into the room he was greeted with a good-natured yell: "We want Cunliffe-Lister!" Smiling, Mr. Baldwin returned the chaff: "I am glad to have a chance of meeting people who really make and unmake men and Governments. I present myself with some trepidation before you. I think it is extraordinarily kind of you to care to have me among you at this moment, when a vote of censure is overhanging my head.

"I heard your chairman say that the press men's lot has improved in recent years. That is a new experience to me. A Prime Minister's work is much harder than it used to be. Telephones and motor cars have added most distractingly to the daily labors of a Prime Minister. I wish none of them had ever been invented."

Lady Iveagh, daughter-in-law of the late head of the Guiness Brewery, became the seventh woman member* of the present parliament when she won (by a majority of about 6,000 votes over her Liberal and Labor opponents), the seat for Southend-on-Sea, vacated by her husband's elevation to the Peerage on the death of his father. Said she, summing up what was called a "piquant campaign:" "The Southend people's verdict proves, further, their confidence that a wife may represent them as faithfully as a husband."

HOUSE OF LORDS. Their Lordships' contribution to the good Government of Britain lay in a highly polished exposition by Viscount Cecil of the reasons why he resigned some weeks ago from the Cabinet. Said he: "No resignation is an isolated act. It is usually related to a string of events of which it is the culmination. I shall therefore touch briefly upon what led up to it."

He then proceeded to trace the en tire history of naval and land disarmament at the League. Coming to the point of the last Naval Conference, called by U. S. President Coolidge, he said:

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer [Winston Spencer Churchill], since the breakdown of the Conference, has stated specifically: 'Therefore we are unable now--and I hope at all future times--to international embody in a solemn international agreement any words which would bind us to the principle of mathematical parity in naval strength.'

"I am sure that, if persisted in, this warning bangs, bolts and bars the door against any hope of fur ther agreement with the United States on naval armament." It was this attitude, said Lord Cecil, that prevented an agreement when one had "very nearly" been reached. Continued he:

"We began to receive telegrams to indicate that the cabinet was dissatisfied. At last they culminated in a request to us that we return home for consultation. We pointed out that such a procedure would be very bad for the success of the negotiations, and for a time were allowed to remain."

Then he concluded:

"Two great Anglo-Saxon communities preferred disagreement to a concession on the relatively insignificant questions of the gunpower of second-class cruisers. Surely these two nations instead of meticulously counting up every ton and every gun of each other's fleets, should rather regarded themselves as equal contibuters to a joint force whose chief duty was the maintenance of peace of the world."

* The President of the Board of Trade, although a member of the Government, is not a Cabinet Minister.

* The other six are: Lady Astor, the Duchess of Atholl, Miss Margaret Bondfield, Miss Susan Lawrence, Mrs. Helen Philipson, Miss Ellen C. Wilkinson.