Parliament's Week

The Lords

P:Placed the Labor Government in a technical minority by passing 42 to 21 (with 674 absences and abstentions) a resolution which deplored Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald's recognition of Soviet Russia (TIME, Nov. 18). The vote came after a sneering, sarcastic harang by the Earl of Birkenhead, bitter Moscow-phobe. "I am almost convinced by the Government's orators," said the bitter Earl, "that Soviet propaganda is either wholly innocuous or positively beneficial to Great Britain. Perhaps we ought to subsidize it!"

Paradox of the debate: Anglo-Soviet rapprochement was vigorously though un successfully championed by the Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, who thundered: "I favor the creation of some direct channel through which we may protest the Soviet oppression of ministers of religion!"

Despite the deploring vote of Their Lordships, Sir Esmond Ovey left London last week for Moscow as His Majesty's ambassador to the Reds.

The Commons

P:Ordered not a single drink of vodka, last week, despite the fact that, for the first time since the War, the wine and spirit list of the House of Commons bars was revised to include "Finest Russian Liqueur Vodka . . . is. 6d" [36-c-]. Wags insisted that this innovation was for the benefit of the new Soviet Ambassador, expected soon in London (see above).

P:Witnessed an appalling sight as extreme Left-wing Laborites revolted from their party and voted with the Conservative Opposition for the first time in history, thus nearly toppling down the Labor Cabinet on the eve of the Hoover-MacDonald Naval Parley.

Ministress of Labor Margaret ("Saint Maggie'') Bondfield provoked the crisis by refusing a Left Laborite demand to add -L-50,000 ($250,000) to the dole under the Government's Unemployment Relief Bill (TIME, Nov. 25). Then upon hobnailed feet rose sturdy John Wheately, a Scotsman from the industrial Clydeside slums of Glasgow, five years ago Minister of Health in the first MacDonald Cabinet.

"My God!" roared Clydeside John. "When I think of the speeches made at the general election by people [Laborites] around me now, the appeals to the class among whom I was brought up to put their faith in us--when I come here and have to listen to a Minister of Labor telling us she has to steel her heart against a demand for -L-50,000 to alleviate the worst form of suffering amidst the poorest of the poor! It makes me almost burst with indignation at the dishonesty of politics!"

When white-lipped "Saint Maggie" risked a closure vote, bellowing John Wheately rushed into the Opposition lobby ahead of the Conservatives themselves, took with him other Clydesiders--fiery Jimmy Maxton, carrot-haired George Buchanan, dour David Kirkwood. Amid Tory cheers and then a dead hush Conservative Leader Stanley Baldwin edged over for a tense, whispered conference with Liberal David Lloyd George. If the Welshman agreed to go in with Baldwin, as he did fortnight ago on the picayune messenger boys issue (TIME, Dec. 9), then the MacDonald Cabinet was as good as done. But Mr. Lloyd George is peculiar. Like the Heathen Chinee, he and his Liberals sat impassive, refused to go into either division lobby, abstained from voting. Scowling, the Conservatives followed the Clydesiders; scowling blacker the regular Laborites filed into the Government's lobby. The result looked grave. Scot MacDonald, who weathered the messenger boy crisis with a majority of 70, squeaked through last week with an ominous 13.

P:As usual, David Lloyd George covered the trail of his devious policy with an oration about nothing in particular but of lofty moral tone. At the mere mention of Disarmament, the little Welsh lawyer leaped up to cry: "President Herbert Hoover is the only world statesman of today who sees that problem with clear eyes!" (no mean dig at James Ramsay MacDonald). "Mr. Hoover has pointed out that men under arms including actual reservists, in the world are almost 30,000,000, or 10,000,000 more numerous than before the War. Every time I, or anyone else, try to say what President Hoover has said, statistics carefully cooked by the League of Nations are hurled at our heads enumerating peace establishments, which mean nothing. . . . The League is in danger of failure, through being run by flapdoodlers! It has done nothing but sit for ten years. It is the old question of petrol [gasoline] without a machine. There's nothing left of the League today but perfume. . . .

"What is the [Labor] government going to do about all this? If we had Hoovers in every country, the problem [of Disarmament] would be solved."

At the close of Lloyd George's magnetic flapdoodling, the House surprised itself by passing this resolution: "In the opinion of this House the government should use its utmost efforts to stimulate international action for the study and eventual preparation of a treaty for the comprehensive reduction and limitation of naval, military and air armaments, including war material as well as personnel."

Since the Hoover-MacDonald Conference will deal only with naval disarmament, the Welshman had successfully wangled into the record that he is the champion of things bigger, broader, better.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.