Cuckooed Conservative

In Scotland April Fooling is called "hunting the gowk" (cuckoo). Last week on All Fool's Day His Majesty's Loyal Opposition in the House of Commons made of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin a prime cuckoo.

Incident arose from an utterly inconsequential resolution by Ellen C. Wilkinson, author of Why War?, calling on the Government to pay women the same salaries as men in the lower grades of the Civil Service. In the course of the desultory debate, M. P.'s indebted to the women's vote and reluctant to sponsor openly the Government's thesis that British women in the Civil Service are already better paid than other British women, quietly sneaked out of the House. The alert leader of the Labor Opposition, Major Clement R. Attlee, did a little quick counting, called for a vote. The mighty British Conservative Government, possessor of a regular majority of 250, was beaten, 156-to-148. Literally, this meant that the Government must, over its own policy, proceed to give women civil servants equal pay. Since the House was then sitting in committee, His Majesty's Government hastily won (149-to-134) a motion that the Speaker be returned to his chair. It could not, however, prevent Labor's Major Attlee from stampeding through a motion to adjourn a House divided between hilarious laughter and solemn indignation.

Good-humoredly asserted Cuckoo Baldwin: "The members may go away less dissatisfied if they remember that they have just passed two conflicting votes and that it is the first of April." Given time to think it over, Prime Minister Baldwin reflected that even a freak defeat of his Government might look bad with European politics in their present state. Turning earnest next day, he announced that Miss Wilkinson's resolution would be redebated, voted on this week by a full House, the division to be counted as a vote of confidence or lack of confidence in the Government's foreign policy. This week a packed House gravely debated the resolution again, voting it down 361-to-145.

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