The Mace! The Mace!

Hunched forward on a bench in the Distinguished Visitors' Gallery, a plump cheese man from upstate New York sat watching the House of Commons at its work one day last week. "He's Chairman of their Congressional Rules Committee over in the States," the M. P.'s told each other. "Some such name as Snell."

To the hard, darting, practical glance of Congressman Bertrand ("Bert") Snell the House of Commons must have teemed with curious contrasts. In his own semicircular House of Representatives, for example, males and females sit hatless as in a theatre, facing the "well" beyond which rises Speaker Nicholas Longworth's rostrum. They may not eat, drink or smoke, but may address the House in Spanish--language of the Philippines.

On the contrary, Mr. Speaker Edward Algernon Fitzroy of the House of Commons sits not high upon a rostrum but low in his great oak-canopied Chair, facing an oblong room richly panelled. On his right rise the Government benches, on his left the Opposition. The members may recline at full length when the House is not too full. They may wear hats (must wear them when raising a point of order during a division), may not smoke, may not drink, may not address the House in any language except English.

U. S. Representatives refer to each other as "the Gentleman from Idaho" (or wherever) but an M. P. is "the Honorable Member from East Ham," or "the Learned Member" if a lawyer, or "the Gallant Member" if a military or naval man, or "the Right Honorable" if a Minister of the Crown.

Britain's Gandhite. Suddenly, Congressman Snell and every one else in the chamber beheld an ascetic looking Laborite with high cheekbones and owlish glasses leap up from his bench and, pulling a queer white cap from his pocket, clap it on his head. What did that mean?

In far away India obstreperous Gand-hites wear white, homespun "Gandhi Caps," which British policemen fish off their heads. The fishing is done with poles having a sharp hook at the end, and while they fish the police beat the nonresisting Gandhites with staves (TIME, July 7). It was in protest against such "inhumanity" that ascetic Laborite Archibald Fenner Brockway, M. P., 42, a leading publicist and orator of his party, was startling the House with his "Gandhi Cap." He demanded that without further ado his chief, Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald permit debate on India, then and there.

Scot MacDonald refused. Mr. Brockway in his white cap persisted amid cries of "Order! Order!" When he would not come to order the Speaker "named" him. Mr. MacDonald moved his suspension and the House proceeded to vote it by strolling off into the division lobbies. It was then that a supreme rupture of precedent occurred, electrifying and dumfounding every Briton present.

"A Damned Disgrace!" As the four tellers approached the Chair to inform the Speaker that Gandhite Brockway had been suspended by a vote of 260 to 24, Teller John Beckett, a Laborite nobody, was seen to whisper to one of his colleagues, was answered by a shake of the head.

As the other tellers began their traditional three bows to the Chair, Mr. Beckett without bowing suddenly shouted:

"I don't know what you think, Mr. Speaker, but this vote is a damned disgrace!"

Then, while the House and the other three tellers literally froze in their tracks with horror, Teller Beckett stretched forth a rash hand toward Parliament's most sacred emblem--the Mace.

Not quite 300 years ago, in 1653, doughty Oliver Cromwell froze English blood by his terrible command, "Take away that bauble!", and for a time the Mace was taken away. Since then no M. P. upon no matter what provocation has ever removed the Mace--this being the sole prerogative of the Sergeant-at-Arms.

Last week wrathful Teller Beckett, like a man beside himself, laid hold of the massy golden emblem, raised it to his shoulder and attempted to scurry out of the House! Up at once, aghast and furious, leaped Admiral Sir Colin Keppel, the Sergeant-at-Arms, to dash from his pew in pursuit. But Sir Colin's ceremonial sword caught in the pew, delaying him, and it was a spry messenger who overtook Beckett, took the Mace from him, handed it to Sir Colin when he arrived. Sir Corin then, with measured tread and awesome frown, marched back with Cromwell's "bauble," restored it to its place.

Cried the Speaker, shrill with anger but punctilious of phrase: "The Honorable Member from Peckham will retire from the House immediately!"

Amid angry shouts of "Get out of it! Get out of it!" the House gradually realized that Mr. Beckett had got-out-of-it as soon as the Mace was taken from him. The shouts then changed to "He's run away! Run away! Run away!"

"Rape of the Mace." Almost too much for British editors was this desecration of the Mace. The august Time's editorial, "The Rape of the Mace" was an attempt at urbanity but the editor of the Daily Telegraph (Conservative) let himself go completely, openly deplored the presence of Rules Chairman Snell and other U. S. Congressmen* in the Gallery of the House when the sacrilege occurred. The distracted Telegraph said: "One hopes they understand that the Mace in no sense represents the authority of the Crown. It is purely a parliamentary symbol representing the determination of the Speaker to uphold the liberties of Parliament and that is why when the House goes into com mittee and the Speaker leaves his chair the Mace is removed from the table and hung beneath it on hooks.

"Without the Mace it is doubtful whether the House can sit with authority, and a story is recalled of how the late T. P. O'Connor revealed a plot among Irishmen to seize the Mace and throw it into the Thames. Yet, bitter as the Irish passions were then, no Irishman ever touched the Mace."

The U. S. Mace. Perhaps because no Congressman ever raped it, few U. S. citizens know that the House of Representatives has its distinctive Mace, topped by a silver American Eagle rampant. Should two Congressmen quarrel in the House, Sergeant-at-Arms J. G. Rodgers or his assistant would instantly snatch the Mace from its pedestal at the right of Speaker Longworth's chair and advance upon the hotheads. Such quarrels instantly and almost invariably cool. Probably apocryphal is the story that a Congress man once refused to cool, whereupon the quick-witted Sergeant-at-Arms placed the silver eagle's beak within a half-inch of the Congressman's nose and exclaimed: "Sit down or he'll peck you!"

Impenitent Beckett. One policeman was sufficient to escort Gandhite Brockway and Mace-Snatcher Beckett last week "from the Parliamentary precincts." Suspended, they might not resume their seats until this week. It was even said that at the next election the Labor Party will' refuse to let Mr. Beckett run again as one of their candidates, so furious were mem bers of that party at his unseemly con duct.

"When I got to the Speaker's table I was boiling with indignation," said he last week to reporters, "I stood by my friend Mr. Brockway to protest against our effete Parliamentary system. The Labor Government will be faced with many more such protests while it continues to ape its so-called betters. Lord Tom Noddy may cut a gracious figure in silk breeches, but the same cannot be said of Jimmy Thomas [the Rt. Hon. James Henry Thomas, M. P., P. C., onetime engine greaser, today Secretary of State for the Dominions]!"

"What did you say to the teller next to you?" asked the newshawks. "It was Will Brown, wasn't it? Why did he shake his head?"

"I said to him: 'They can't suspend Brockway if the Mace is not on the table, can they?' " explained Mr. Beckett, adding stoutly to protect his friend Brown: "Before he could reply I had already picked up the Mace. My first surprise was to find how light it was. I thought I could get away with it. If I had, I would have deposited it in the cloakroom and left the House."

Work Done by Parliament last week:

The Lords

P: Began to greet their colleague, the onetime British Ambassador to the U. S. by his new title, announced in the Official Gazette last week: "Baron Howard of Penrith and of Gowbarrow in the County of Cumberland."

P: Again voted down Viscount Astor's annual motion to admit peeresses-in-their-own-right to seats in the House of Lords.

The Commons

P: Handsomely supported Mr. Mac-Donald's Egyptian policy (see below).

P: Threw out a Conservative motion censuring the Labor Party's free trade policy by a vote of 312 to 241, the largest majority Mr. MacDonald has received in recent weeks.

*In London to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union (see p. 24).

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