Parliament's Week

The Lords:

P: Were augmented by Philip Snowden, Lord Privy Seal in the National Government, whom His Majesty was graciously pleased to create last week a Viscount.

A Viscount is addressed by George V as ''our right trusty and well beloved cousin." Cousin Snowden will choose what he wants to be Viscount of (perhaps his birthplace, Keighley; or his home, Tilford), will take his seat in the House of Lords later.

The Commons:

P: Gasped as decorous debate on George V's Speech from the Throne (TIME, Nov. 16) was interrupted with flagrant (but accurate) lese majesteeby "Old George" Lansbury, new floor leader of the beaten Labor Party.

"This innocuous document known as the King's Speech," cried Old George waving a copy, "is full of emptiness from beginning to end!"

Labor's formal but innocuous attack on the Speech (written of course not by King George but by Scot MacDonald) was launched by Labor M. P. Sir Stafford Cripps, an alert "comer" now forging to party leadership. Sir Stafford moved an amendment to the Throne Speech regretting that it had "omitted all items of socialistic legislation," saw his amendment killed by the crushing Government majority, largest in British history (TIME, Nov. 9).

P: Suspected Lady Astor (who had hoped for a Cabinet post) of pique when she asked the Prime Minister: "Is no woman to be included in the National Government?"

Mr. MacDonald: I should like to have not one but half a dozen, (smirks)

Lady A.: I do not understand that reply.

Mr. M.: I plead guilty! I did not mean the noble lady should understand it. (laughter)

P: Puzzled over the Prime Minister's opening Parliamentary speech, which Scot MacDonald made as innocuous as the words he had put into George V's mouth, but more exciting.

M. P.s sat up alert when the Prime Minister denounced "Crazy World Economy" and called War Debts and Reparations "this absurd entanglement of the impossible." They relaxed, yawned when he proposed nothing more than to follow the line of re-examining German capacity-to-pay, the line already taken by Mr. Hoover and M. Laval. When Orator MacDonald turned to gold, harping on Philip Snowden's old project for a world monetary conference to "wisely redistribute" the precious metal, M. P.s noticed again that in fiscal matters the Prime Minister is a romantic. Realistically the U. S. and France oppose all schemes for "distributing" their gold except the mechanism of international exchange, which Ramsay MacDonald disparaged thus:

"It is impossible to decree that, without regard to circumstances, certain blocks of gold shall be transferred from one nation to another, without resulting in impoverishment of the nation which hands out the gold and ultimately of that which receives it."

In what "circumstances" blocks of gold should be transferred the Prime Minister did not say.

P: Cheered a surprising blast from frosty, be-monocled Sir Austen Chamberlain who bade the National Government (in which his younger brother Neville is Chancellor of the Exchequer) "take steps to see that no excessive time is lost in formulating their policy!" (Cries of "Hear! Hear!")

Flaying Scot MacDonald's endlessly reiterated plea for a "free hand," which the Prime Minister made again in speeches last week, Sir Austen acidly remarked: "When one asks for a free hand it should not be to let that hand lie limply."

P: Cheered Conservative Leader Stanley Baldwin's opening speech in which he bluntly warned France that in the coming re-examination of German capacity-to-pay . Britain will demand protection for the short-term credits she has extended Germany. France, having extended few such credits, would not mind scrapping them, if that were the only way to keep Reparations payments going.

"London," boomed Honest Stanley, "has been largely instrumental in financing Germany during the last ten years. Those advances were not speculative. They represented the best type of security known to the market and it is clear that their security must not be endangered by political debts. If that were to take place, it would destroy Germany's commercial credit, and, once that occurred, there would be no future prospect at all for Reparations."

P: Watched pro-tariff M. P.s (a huge majority bloc in the National Government) grow more & more restive until appeased last week by President of the Board of Trade Walter Runciman, a free-trader at heart, whom they had feared would try to block tariff progress by the National Government.

Abjectly hauling down his flag, Mr. Runciman announced that the National Government will rush into law this week a bill empowering the Board of Trade to decree an import duty "not exceeding 100%" on numerous manufactured articles. He pledged his Board to use these powers immediately ("Hear! Hear!") to prevent "dumping in British markets" (cheers) while the National Government elaborates a more carefully worked out tariff policy.

"We should be foolish," ended rueful ex-Free Trader Runciman. "to copy exactly the fiscal [i. e. tariff] policy of the United States."

P: Put out of mind for several weeks the pitiful Lloyd George "splinter party" of four M. P.s when half the party sailed for Colombo, Ceylon. With convalescent Father David, M. P., sailed Daughter Megan, M. P., Dame Margaret (wife), a physician and a nurse.

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