The Week in Parliament

COMMONWEALTH

(British Commonwealth of Nations)

The Commons--

P:Indulged in many a quiet smile as Premier Baldwin squelched several well-meaning bishops who attempted to intervene in the coal strike. (See below.)

P:Noted with attention a decision by the Trade Union Council to throw its support once more behind the Miners Federation. As everyone knows these potent bodies were estranged when the Council called off the "general strike" (TIME, May 10), which was originally begun to back up the coal strike.

P:Was rebuked with measured scorn and thoroughly dressed down by the Speaker, for "the gross indignity offered to Parliament and the vile discourtesy done to the House of Lords" (TIME, July 12), by Laborite M. P.'s who cat-called and booed among themselves while a message from the King was read.

P:Heard Laborite Leader Ram say Macdonald rebuke Laborite Backbencher Lawson when he attempted to heckle the Speaker. Craning his neck like an angry bull turtle, former Premier Macdonald snapped: "Stop it, Lawson! Say you're sorry. Apologize to the Speaker." Mr. Lawson reddened, purpled, offered the (for him) supreme apology of remaining silent for some hours.

P:Was the scene of an extraordinary mock session staged for the benefit of 859 U. S. college preceptors visiting London under the auspices of the Art Trust Guild of Chicago. Sir Samuel Chapman, M. P., and Lady Astor enacted, during a recess of the House, the respective roles of a mock-Speaker and a mock-Clydside Laborite extremist. "Attaboy!" shouted many a U. S. savant as the Right Honorable Lady refused to desist from her ex tempore harangue on War debts when called to order by "Speaker" Chapman. Eventually she subsided as her fellow M. P.'s trooped back into the House. Later the Speaker of the House testily announced that Sir Samuel had not actually committed the sacrilege of sitting in the Speaker's Chair, but had merely stood before it.

P:Debated with exemplary decorum a Labor resolution calling for an inquiry into the propriety of Cabinet Ministers associating themselves in any way with corporations having contracts with the Government. Laborite Arthur Henderson alleged that Minister of Health Neville Chamberlain is associated with at least two concerns having a total of 21 government contracts. Premier Baldwin championed "the principle established in 1906 of permitting Cabinet Ministers to hold honorary corporate directorships," and the Labor motion was squelched by a government majority of 246. Cried Laborite Henderson: "It seems that all Conservatives, like Caesar's wife, are held by courtesy above suspicion."

P:Were informed by Minister of Health Neville Chamberlain that one out of every seven Englishmen who reach the age of 30 ultimately dies of cancer. "But," said Mr. Chamberlain, "a cure for cancer will come. . . . Tuberculosis, once thought incurable, is now the most curable of diseases."