Codex for the Classes

While the Speaker of the House of Commons dozed behind the great oak table on which lies its glittering silver-gilt mace, the Masses and the Classes of Great Britain clashed in the persons of their duly elected M. P.'s last week over a 4th Century Biblical manuscript for which the Soviet Government has been paid -L-100,000 ($511,000).

For the Masses spoke stringy-haired James Maxton, most embittered of Scottish Laborites. "Many of us have asked in this House for bread for the poor," he cried, "and we have not gotten it. But you!" -- gesturing toward the Government Bench -- "Where it was a question not of bread but of this manuscript the thing was bought fast enough for -L-100,000!"

Strictly speaking the British Museum bought the famed Codex Sinaiticus from the Soviet Government (TIME, Jan. 1 et seq.) and His Majesty's Government merely agreed to pay such part of the -L-100,000 as could not be raised by public subscription. The debate last week was provoked by announcement that the Ex chequer will have to pay -L-41,440.

"Monstrous!" cried Laborite John Joseph Tinker. "I have seen this thing in the British Museum and I call it useless. If scholars like such things let them buy them and leave this -L-40,000 to be spent for the relief of poverty and distress."

Not even Franklin Roosevelt could be counted on to convince the U. S. Congress that such an expenditure was justified, but England remains England and His Majesty's Government felt not the slightest need to send Acting Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin into the breach last week. Instead, fingering his Old Etonian tie, the husband of Lady Diana (The Miracle) Manners arose from the Government bench. In his own right Alfred Duff Cooper, M. P., is Financial Secretary at the War Office and a special protege of Conservative Leader Baldwin. When Patron Baldwin was being attacked with special savagery by the Press of Viscount Rothermere, Protege Duff Cooper publicly declared that "Lord Rothermere hasn't got the guts of a louse!" (TIME, March 23, 1931). Last week he turned with scorn no less withering upon James Maxton.

"Would the Labor Party allow St. Paul's to collapse or sell the pictures in the National Gallery," he asked, "merely because, until now, the majority may not see anything in them?

"There is no country in the world in which the actual text of the Scriptures has had greater effect than in Britain. . . . This is the earliest manuscript of the New Testament in the world. ... It has for this country, more than for any other, a particular value.

"The Government must have a sense of proportion. . . . There are many things in this country of which the vast majority of voters are unappreciative. ... Is the Government not to have the right to have the courage to say 'This is a thing that England ought to possess' when it is offered for sale? . . . The British Museum is a public body under Parliamentary control. To say that the Government ought not to hand over this money to the British Museum is ridiculous!"

Since the National Government has enough Conservative votes to steam roller the Masses, at least until the British election to be held not later than 1936, the Classes scored an easy triumph on the Codex issue last week as Parliament rose (see p. 14).

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