Parliament's Week

P:Premier Baldwin announced in the House that the Government is prepared to grant facilities to Lady Astor's bill prohibiting the sale of intoxicants to persons under 18 years of age if it fails to pass through the remaining stages in the time allotted to private members' bills.

P:Mrs. Philipson (Mabel Russell), newly elected Conservative member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, took her seat in the House. A Labor member is said to have shouted: "Cheer up, Nancy!" to Lady Astor.

P:A bill providing for equal divorce rights for both sexes was passed by a vote of 257 to 26. The bill now goes to the House of Lords for approval. Under this bill women will no longer be obliged to prove desertion or cruelty in addition to misconduct to obtain a divorce. Thus they are placed on an equal footing with men.

P:Several amusing incidents occurred in the passage of the divorce bill. Someone asked if wives should pay their divorced husbands alimony. Said Sir Frederick Banbury, Conservative, City of London: "I have always believed that woman was a superior person and that man should support her, but it seems that we are getting away from that now! "Amendments preventing wives from using the measure retroactively were accepted.

P:A bill to forbid the publication of the details of divorce court evidence passed its second reading and was referred to committee.

P:The status of Lord Robert Cecil in the Cabinet was the subject of many questions. The Premier, however, was able to postpone the issue, but notice of questions was given by Philip Snowden, Laborite, and Sir W. Ellis Hume-Williams, Conservative; the Premier must make a definite reply soon.

P:A motion to instal baths in houses being converted into apartments for laborers was defeated. Said Colonel Prettyman, Conservative for Chelmsford: "Why, our forefathers had only two baths in their lifetime--one when they were born and the other when they died--and they took neither of them voluntarily." The New York Herald says: "It's all a myth about the Englishman and his inevitable bath."