Parliament's Week

The Commons:

P:Plucked up hope that it may be possible to tempt enough young men to enlist in the British Army without resorting to hated conscription, when the Duke of Windsor's close friend War Secretary Alfred Duff Cooper disclosed the plans of His Majesty's Government for "Kidding Kids Into The Army," as amused journals soon expressed it in headlines last week.

"We are endeavoring to introduce the principle of the sitting room in which the men can read, write and listen to the radio," declared the War Secretary in glowing description of new British Army barracks now being built. He implied that in winter these will be heated up to between 55DEG and 60DEG--this in a kingdom where many a peer would think it extravagant to keep his castle as warm as that. In addition Mr. Duff Cooper promised to spend $200,000 yearly on the unprecedented innovation of hiring British civilians to do the "K. P." (kitchen police) duties every soldier has always had to perform, and hated--such as peeling potatoes, scrubbing floors, picking up cigaret stubs, shining boots.

As the Army's present three extremely hearty meals per day have not proved tempting enough, War Secretary Duff Cooper amid laughter and cheers upped the Army's gustatory ante to four meals per day, with butter thrown in to replace customary margarine and "for younger soldiers a ration of milk to build them up." Instead of having to take care of his uniform and replace it at his own expense, Tommy Atkins will at all times be "completely equipped free" by His Majesty's Government, not only with service uniforms but with a "walking out uniform" of fetching blue, designed explicitly to increase his sex appeal. All this the War Secretary, markedly handsome and virile husband of famed and markedly feminine Lady Diana Manners, described in his final burst of oratory last week as "a new Charter of Freedom for the British soldier!"

P:Members chortled at the policy of Home Secretary Sir John Simon in not having British police arrest Sir Oswald Mosley for his flagrant, daily violation of Parliament's recently enacted law barring in Britain the wearing of "political uniforms" such as a black shirt (TIME, Nov. 23). "I have worn this black shirt myself for six weeks!" cried Sir Oswald at a meeting of his BUF (British Union of Fascists). "Nothing has been done to me and we Fascists are beginning to assume that this black shirt I am wearing is not in the Government's view illegal. I challenge them to order my arrest!"

P:The House inferred from statements in the most authoritative Tokyo newsorgans last week that the Imperial Japanese Government, who have refused to join in extension of the qualitative limitation on naval building of the London and Washington treaties (TIME, Jan. 27, 1936), are now about to start building battleships of 50,000 tons each. In prompt official British retort to these unofficial Japanese threats last week, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Samuel Hoare, sharply told the House: "It would be a matter of very great regret to all of us if any one of the naval powers started building guns bigger than fourteen inches or battleships bigger than 35,000 tons. It would be a great calamity to the world if we saw once again the starting of competition between new types and sizes."

P:Another friend of the Duke of Windsor, swank Undersecretary of State for Air Sir Philip Sassoon, announced that although his rearmament program has fallen short of the 124 squadrons of first-line planes he expected to have by this time, nevertheless the Air Ministry is rushing construction so fast that new types are being put into actual production without waiting to make experimental tests. This unprecedented method involves many "teething troubles," admitted Sir Philip, "but it is proving incomparably quicker ... thoroughly justified and a thousand times worth while!"

P:Viscount Cranborne, speaking for the Foreign Office, announced that false hoisting of the British flag by the Spanish gunrunner Mar Cantabrico, loaded with $2,020,000 worth of munitions for the Civil War (TIME, March 15), would not be protested by His Majesty's Government. The reason, according to Cranborne: the old ruse of hoisting another country's flag to fool your enemy is "well established in international law."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.