Parliament's Week

The Lords:

P: Printed proceedings of the House of Lords begin each day with the notation: "The Lord Chancellor took his seat on the Woolsack." In the time of Edward III, the Lord Chancellor actually sat upon a cushion stuffed with wool, to signify England's dependence upon her wool trade. Now the historic woolsack is a seat upholstered in red cloth. Great was the dismay of the Lords a month ago when the woolsack was found to contain common horsehair. No record of the change had been made. Last weekend, with the peers away for their Whitsuntide recess, the Lord Great Chamberlain, who has charge of the Houses of Parliament, ordered the woolsack ripped open, stuffed with real wool.

The Commons:

P: As Liberals and Laborites yapped at his heels with attacks on Britain's defense programs, the harried Minister for the Coordination of Defense, big. burly Sir Thomas Inskip, last week dropped a trayful of the Government's conscription plans on the Commons' floor. He announced: "There is certain to be in the event of war a competent authority who will allocate, according to age and capacity of each person, a suitable position for that person to occupy."

Liberals and Laborites read into Sir Thomas' statement a threat to conscript labor in wartime. Only recently His Majesty's Loyal Opposition forced Prime Minister Chamberlain to stop toying with the scheme of general registration of all citizens, the first step toward nationwide conscription. "As soon as war is declared the generals and the brass hats will be in charge of the whole resources of the country," howled Laborite Aneurin Bevan last week. Two days later, with His Majesty's Loyal Opposition still peppering Sir Thomas, the Prime Minister himself was forced onto the floor to try to make the anxious M. P.s believe that no plan for compulsory non-military or industrial service has been made.

P: Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare last week gave M. P.s a realistic peek at Armageddon, described the extensive preparations being made for air attacks on London, expected to be a main objective of enemy bombers. Trenches to provide shelter for 1,500,000 people will be dug in London's parks, declared Sir Samuel, and a ring of hospital tents set up outside the city. Oxford and Cambridge universities will be turned into clearing stations for casualties. Some 30,000,000 sandbags, ready to be filled, have been stacked away in warehouses and 275,000,000 more are in production. Railways operating out of London have worked out a plan to move almost half of Greater London's 8.000,000 population into the countryside within 72 hours. To assure the M. P.s that they could carry on even while an air raid was in progress. Sir Samuel announced that bombproof refuges will be built in the House itself.

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