Parliament's Week

House of Lords. "DieHard" and hard-shell Peers attacked the proposed recognition of the Russian Soviet Government. Lord Emmott said that the British Government's well-meant gesture had received a contemptuous, almost insulting reception from Zinoviev (Chairman of the Third Internationale). He said that a Russian memorandum to a London financial group demanded a loan of -L-20,000,000 to -L-30, 000,000 as a condition of the return of confiscated property in Russia. Lord Curzon, onetime Foreign Secretary, charged the Soviets with backing Sinn Fein in Ireland, training Indian extremists in Moscow for the special purpose of breaking up the British Raj in India, establishing agencies in South Africa to break up the Union, conducting propaganda and intrigue against Great Britain in Persia.

House of Commons. Herbert H. Asquith and David Lloyd George, leaders of the Liberal Party, made a sortie against Premier MacDonald's foreign policy. The Premier's handling of Anglo-French relations was strongly attacked, Mr. Asquith expressing dissatisfaction with the Ruhr and Rhineland questions. Mr. MacDonald upheld his belief that the League of Nations was the best instrument to limit the existing menace to world peace.

Lloyd George following Mr. MacDonald, upheld the value of an Anglo-French military pact. "Since when has the word of this country been useless for the protection of another country without the details being given of the force whereby it is backed?" he asked heatedly. The former Premier complained that Mr. MacDonald's policy was nebulous; he twitted the Labor Government with failure to protest against French intentions to make the Ruhr occupation permanent; he gave warning that the Franco-Prussian industrial agreements were operating to the detriment of Great Britain.

P:Jack Jones,*irrepressible Labor M. P. for Silvertown, "Wittiest man in the House of Commons," was said to have "convulsed" his colleagues (with the sole exception of the Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George) by saying: "Lloyd George may be the wizard of Wales, but he's the blizzard of Britain !"

P:A proposal to give M. P.'s free railway passes was attacked by the press. The liberal Star and the ultra-conservative Morning Post joined in heaping ridicule on the efforts of members to save themselves -L-70,000. The Post observed: "If this country cannot afford to defend itself [referring to the abandonment (TIME, March 31) of the Singapore naval base scheme], it cannot afford to pay for the luxury of sending politicians to Parliament." Rejection of the bill was forecast.

P:Members of Parliament signed a petition asking King George to sign a pardon for two sheepdogs belonging to an M. P., which were convicted of worrying sheep in Scotland. The dogs had been sentenced to death by a local Police Court. An appeal was made to the Secretary for Scotland, who replied that he could reprieve a man but not a dog. The Lord Advocate advised that only the King could save the dogs. One of the guilty dogs is about to become a mother.

P:A bill in the House of Lords provided that sailors shall receive pay when a ship is lost. This bill, introduced by Lord Parmoor, British Delegate to the League of Nations, is based on a convention agreed on at Geneva; Bulgaria and Esthonia ratified it; and it has been recommended to Parliament by the governments of Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain. Bills to give effect to it are before the Argentine and French parliaments.

*Alderman John Joseph Jones, Mayor of West Ham, prefers to be known as plain Jack Jones, and is noted for his knack of playing the buffoon. His witticisms, repartee and interruptions are becoming famous: Westminster [the Houses of Parliament] is the national gasworks. I used to work in a retort house. Now I work in a house of retorts." "It will be the duty of Labor to wipe out flunkeyism. . . . When I first sat in the House of Commons in 1918 there were only 47 of us Laborites and high silk hats were common. Now we're 192 strong and only six members today wear high hats." In his first session he drew a great laugh by saying "The cottage where I live is so small that when I want to get my trousers on in the morning I have to put my legs out of the window." In apologizing for calling another member "a dirty swine" he declared: "During yesterday's proceedings I lost my temper--the only thing I've got to lose. Other Jonesian epigrams are: "The man who will come out on strike for fun will go to Hell for pleasure." "Our soldiers who went out to fight for their country came to back find they had not got one." "The dole is not an insurance against unemployment; it is an insurance against revolution "