Rim of Doom

What would Mr. Baldwin say? The moment had come, last week, for which the leader of Britain's Conservative Party has waited months. The MacDonald Labor Cabinet had just been impressively defeated in the House of Commons by a vote of 282 to 249. Looking across at the Government Bench, Conservative Baldwin could see that the color had left Scot MacDonald's cheeks. He was ashen pale. With what words would Mr. Baldwin attempt, as leader of the Opposition, to force the Prime Minister to resign?

Both men got to their feet amid utter silence.

Said Mr. Baldwin, famed as "the most English of Englishmen," quietly:

"What is now proposed?"

Scot MacDonald cleared his dry throat. "Really, I am rather surprised," he said, "but since no vital principle was involved [in the vote] the Government will proceed" (i. e. would not resign).

This appeared to satisfy Mr. Baldwin. He sat down. But another Conservative, Lord Eustace Percy, hotly denounced the Prime Minister's decision not to resign as "a breach of his personal honor!" Lord Eustace Percy was ignored, the Cabinet gained a precarious lease on life.

Just now the Prime Minister is proceeding on a rather tenuous theory: instead of feeling obliged to resign on any adverse vote (which is theoretically his parliamentary duty), he will cling to power until the House, egged on by the Leader of the Opposition, unmistakably demands his resignation.

The issue on which the Cabinet was defeated last week was an amendment to the school attendance bill. Twenty-six Laborites bolted their party to vote for it. With this gaping split in his ranks Scot MacDonald is clinging by his fingertips to the crackling rim of Doom.

Specific cause of last week's narrow squeak: Religion. The amendment carried provides in effect that the bill shall not come into operation until the Treasury grants certain subsidies to Roman Catholic schools.

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