Men be Men!

Holding no permits to do so, four Scotch lay preachers marched defiantly out upon Glasgow Green not long ago and deliberately preached.

Promptly arrested and sentenced for this crime, they were still in jail last week --and Scotland's eye was on the House of Commons. In its boxlike wooden hall arose a Scotsman from the banks of Clyde, John McGovern. "The sentence on those four lay preachers," cried he, white-lipped, "was cowardly and brutal!" Turning upon William Adamson, Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. McGovern said: "I demand that the Government act to set these preachers free." Put off with an assurance that the Government was "investigating," Clydesider McGovern would not subside or sit down. "I demand Justice!" he kept shouting.

Sternly Speaker Edward Algernon Fitzroy of the House of Commons demanded that Scot McGovern come to order. But he stood his ground: "It was no crime for those four good men to go out on the green and preach! I demand Justice!"

"Order! Order!" roared Conservatives. "Name! Name!"

"I must name the Honorable Member," intoned Mr. Speaker, "for disregarding a ruling of the Chair."

The Honorable Member continued to ask Justice. This, in the circumstances, was intolerable. A fellow Scot, the Prime Minister, leaped up and moved John McGovern be suspended. "That's about all you can do nowadays!" jeered Scot McGovern at Scot Ramsay MacDonald. By a count of 315 to 16 the House promptly voted suspension of John McGovern, but John still stood his ground. "Wring his neck!" advised a Conservative M. P.

Mr. Speaker is not empowered to wring necks or have them wrung. It was 20 years last week since any Speaker had had anyone thrown out of the House (in 1911 the late Mr. Speaker Gully had some Irish nationalist M. P.'s ejected). Last week, as Mr. Speaker Fitzroy hesitated to make history, John McGovern taunted, "You don't have to tell me when to sit down! I sit down when I please."

Intoned Mr. Speaker (for the first time in a generation and for the first time in his life):

"I must ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove the Honorable Member."

The last time Sergeant-at-Arms Admiral Sir Colin Keppel had to act in an emergency (an Honorable Member was trying to carry off the Mace--TIME, July 28, 1930), his old sword caught his old legs and tripped him neatly as he tried to rise from his little wooden pew. But last week Sir Colin Keppel and his six elderly assistants in full evening dress had plenty of time. Stiff and still stood their quarry. Slowly, majestically they made at John McGovern and laid hands upon him.

Suddenly boomed a great Scotch voice: "BE MEN!"

At this rallying cry Scotch M. P.'s of the "Clydeside Group"-- hurled themselves upon the Sergeant-at-Arms' parliamentary posse. Began a serious fist fight.

Conservative M. P.'s, conscious that DIGNITY is the sine qua non of a true British Parliament, sat owlishly upon their benches, silent for the most part, but exclaiming murmurously from time to time, "Wring his neck. Hear, hear! Wring his neck. Hear, hear, hear!" Mr. Speaker, as a last resort, adjourned the sitting and departed, but still the panting, tugging, shirt-tearing, tie-mussing, hair-tousling tussle went on.

Fighting off Scot McGovern's friends as best they could, Sir Colin Keppel & posse dragged him inch by inch the length of his long bench, dragged him into the aisle and down the aisle, dragged him to a point within the Parliament Building where they could conscientiously say, "We have removed the Honorable Member from the House."

Panting like grampuses, mopping their red faces, Sir Colin & posse then went back to their pews. Mr. Speaker reap- peared from his chambers. The House received him standing. He resumed the chair.

In Scotland, where men are men, men recalled last week the last time that John ("I demand Justice") McGovern got into trouble in English London.

A Conservative M. P. had just told the House, "It is idle to raise the school-leaving age. Laboring people do not want their children to remain in school after they are 14 years old."

"That," interrupted Scot McGovern "is a damned lie." He was thereupon suspended for five days last November. Last week Mr. Speaker stated that "the Honorable Member has been automatically suspended for the remainder of the session" (probably about a month).

*Most radical wing of the Labor Party, led by M. P.'s James Maxton and David Kirkwood.

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