Parliament's Week

The Commons--

P: Reacted with dominant Conservative cheers and impotent Laborite scowls when brisk, cheery Sir Bolton Meredith Eyres Monsell, First Lord of the Admiralty, announced an abrupt shift in the emphasis of Britain's current naval building program from small cruisers to large.

"The policy of building cruisers of comparatively small tonnage was adopted by His Majesty's Government," said Sir Bolton, "in the hope that other nations would follow our lead." However, the U. S. and Japan continue to build large cruisers.* Therefore Britain, which had intended to build three small Arethusa-type cruisers (5,450 tons, 6 in. guns) and one Leander-type (7,000 tons, 6 in. guns) next year, will now build a single midget Arethusa and two whopping cruisers of 9,000 tons each, equipped with guns whose size Sir Bolton did not reveal.

This step, he declared, was taken by His Majesty's Government "after the most anxious consideration and with much regret."

P: Hearkened in blank amazement as Laborite Morgan Jones, who had gone to the House distraught from the sick bed of his dying daughter, hurled wildly at British Nobel Peaceman Sir Austen Chamberlain the charge that "By his speeches he encouraged the high-handed policy of Japan in Manchuria!"

Realizing his error next day Laborite Jones humbly apologized to Sir Austen in the House: "I am the more grieved that I made the statement because it was applied to a right honorable member whose unfailing courtesy has won the unstinted admiration of the whole House. I hope the House will acquit me of any malicious intent, and in offering my apology to the right honorable member himself, I hope he will find it possible to forgive, if not to forget."

"Will the House allow me," handsomely replied Sir Austen, "to thank the right honorable gentleman for the very handsome way in which he has treated this incident, and to say I hope it will not weaken, but will confirm the friendly relations which should exist between members sitting on opposite sides of the House."

Hawk-nosed, bemonocled Conservative Sir Austen, Knight of the Garter, then crossed from the Government to the Opposition side of the House, sat down beside Mr. Jones, warmly pressed his hand and sympathized in his trouble.

P: Digested with relish statistics showing that the Government's revenue receipts are running above and its expenditures below Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain's budgetary expectations. The deficit stood at only -L-67,470,921 last week, compared to -L-110,213,910 a year ago. With winter income tax payments (heaviest of the year) about to roll in, the House confidently expected last week to vote tax reductions by next spring. P: Sensed afar off but inevitably impending, the doom of the MacDonald National Government, as 33 Liberal M. P.'s under Sir Herbert Samuel, once Prime Minister MacDonald's Home Secretary, broke definitely with the Government and announced their intention to "cross the floor" of the House and sit with what is termed His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Sir Herbert made clear that his Liberals are not joining the Laborites, but will go to the polls as Liberals in the next general election and try to win back at least a balance-of-power position for their once illustrious Party. "We find ourselves in disagreement with His Majesty's Government," said Sir Samuel, "on almost every issue except their Indian policy."

Thirty-five former Liberal M. P.'s who now call themselves "National Liberals" and rally around Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon, remain supporters of the Government whose prestige was badly rocked by Labor's sensational gains in the recent municipal election (TIME, Nov. 13).

P: Assembled with the House of Lords to hear George V in his robes of state open the regular 1933-34 session of Parliament with a carefully noncommittal statement of policy, were shocked to hear violent Laborite John McGovern bellow "You are a gang of lazy, idle parasites living on the wealth other people create" so soon after the Crown address that it sounded like an interruption. Peeresses peered from the gallery, the King and Queen stared straight ahead.

*Commencing at the Coolidge Geneva Naval Conference (TIME, June 27, 1927, et seq.) there has been a constant British effort to get the U. S. and Japan to standardize on the small short-range cruiser, a type Britain can use most efficiently from her many naval bases. Not having anything like so many bases, the U. S. and Japan require and have been building large, long-range cruisers.

Launched at Camden, N. J. last week was the 10,000 ton, 8-inch gun Tuscaloosa, the 15th cruiser built by the U. S. under the London Naval Treaty.

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