Parliament's Week

The Lords:

P: Coldly gave ear to Baron Beaverbrook. famed little Canadian-born "Hearst of England," while he galloped for 90 minutes on his piebald political hobbyhorse: Free Trade plus High Tariff.

The Beaverbrook scheme, prime stuff for demagogery, can be used to dazzle loose thinkers among both free-traders and protectionists. It had never been up in Parliament until last week, but for many a month Beaverbrook presses have printed its praises on 5,000,000 news sheets daily. Some think the Noble Lord hopes to found a new political party with his scheme as platform. He proposes: first, to line up the Dominions behind a policy of absolute free trade within the Empire;* second, to shut off foreign competition by raising an unscalable tariff wall around the Empire. He says: "I offer this plan as protection against the inroads which the United States are making in our Dominion markets. The manufacturers in the United States have become a great menace to the manufacturers in England!"

Closing his speech with a shrewdly worded challenge to the 100% free-trade Labor Government of Great Britain. Baron Beaverbrook placed the following question on the House of Lords' order of the day: "Will his Majesty's Government do anything to encourage the movement for free trade within the Empire?" If the Government answered "No," the Hearstian Baron could pillory them in his press for forsaking their free-trade policy.

If they answered "Yes," his editors could twist the affirmative into seeming support of his whole scheme, the protectionist features of which are anathema to James Ramsay MacDonald. Adroitly from between Scylla & Charybdis answered Baron Arnold, the Paymaster-General: "This plan means that before there is Empire free trade Great Britain must become a protectionist country. The mandate of the people at the election last May was to maintain free trade, and we propose to do it!"

A few Conservative peers perfunctorily praised the Beaverbrook scheme, out of friendship or fear for its author, but Liberal peers echoed Laborites in pointing out that it is utterly impractical--if for no other reason than that Canada, anxious to protect her infant industries even against the Mother Country, balks at Empire free trade. Observers agreed that the baptism of Beaverbrook's hobbyhorse before the Lords was a fizzle. But the crazy creature remained towering and teetering in the public eye, as terrifying to politicians as the boojums raised by William Randolph Hearst.

The Commons:

P: Received in cogitating silence a declaration by Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald that his Government will not consider themselves necessarily bound by the tradition that a Cabinet should resign if defeated in the House of Commons. They will ignore defeats on "nonessential or minor matters," will resign only if voted down on a "substantial issue."

In 1924, when he was last in power, silver-crested Scot MacDonald made the same declaration, got away with it. Reason: then as now he was working with a very narrow majority in the House, might be accidentally defeated on a picayune issue in the absence of a handful of members who would be in their places to support him on anything big.

P: Rocked with mirth as the Speaker compelled peppery Conservative Brig. General Sir Henry Croft to modify a shouted statement that: "His Majesty's Foreign Secretary ["Uncle Arthur" Henderson] is making a fool of this House!"

From "making a fool," Sir Henry retreated to "grossly deceiving," then to "deceiving," and finally to "misleading."

He contended that "Uncle Arthur" was at least misleading the House when he assured them that under the terms of diplomatic recognition arranged between Great Britain and Russia (TIME, Oct. 7), the British Empire will be safe from machina- tions of the Third International (world bureau of Communist propaganda, headquartered at Moscow). Under a hot fire of questions, last week, Mr. Henderson maintained that this guarantee against Red propaganda will come into effect from the moment Ambassadors are actually ex- changed. In Moscow the official Soviet press embarrassed "Uncle Arthur" greatly by continuing to maintain that the Third International is not bound by any such guarantee, avoided the question of whether it will be.

*The Mother Country is a free-trader in respect to her Dominions, but certain of them levy in protectionist fashion on imports from each other and from her.

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