Crown Crisis

In the House of Lords last week Baron Strickland of Sizergh Castle, Prime Minister of the Colony of Malta, complained most bitterly to his peers.

The Empire has come to a pretty pass, said Lord Strickland in effect, when the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London actually refuses to speak with the Prime Minister of a colony about a grave crisis in that colony!

Gouty peers could but snort their sympathy when Lord Strickland solemnly assured the House that on his present visit to London he has been unable to get a word with his chief: the Laborite Secretary of State for the Colonies, Baron Passneld of Passfield Corner.

Bowlegged little Baron Passfield was present during the harangue. Unruffled, foxy, he made a remarkable excuse. He said that Roman Catholic feeling in Malta runs so high that he did not want to receive Baron Strickland without also receiving Roman Catholic dignitaries, and he did not want to receive them. Oddly enough Lord Strickland is himself a Roman Catholic--one who, as His Majesty's Prime Minister, puts King and Country first.

As the Hoover Administration would have done, the MacDonald Government has decided to send a commission to Malta, and Lord Passfield assured Lord Strickland last week that this commission will very soon set out.

In his impassioned speech, Lord Strickland charged that the Roman Catholic clergy of Malta, in an effort to control the elections, have pronounced it a mortal sin to vote for Malta's Constitutional or Labor Parties. This charge, and the Roman Catholic one that Lord Strickland has interfered with the authority of Pope Pius XI over the Maltese priesthood (TIME, June 2 et seq.) chiefly constitute the "Maltese Question."

"The sacraments," Lord Strickland told the horrified House of Lords last week, "were recently denied to Maltese members of the Ladies' Imperial Club!"

A message concerning Malta which originally read in part, "priests have been accused of violating their sacred vows," once reached the late Lord Curzon in garbled form. For a moment his eye rested upon the words "sacred cows." Without a smile, he drew out his sharp-pointed pencil and annotated the message: "Clearly a case for a Papal bull."

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