Parliament's Week

The Lords:

P:Received into their House the King's youngest son Prince George, technically a "commoner" until he took his seat last week. Loudly the Clerk read the new peer's letters patent from George V, creating Prince George "Duke of Kent, Earl of St. Andrews and Baron Downpatrick."

Then came the Lord Chancellor's writ of summons in the King-Emperor's name: "We strictly enjoin and command you to be faithful to the allegiance by which you are bound to us!"

Nervously in a voice that quivered, Kent swore "By God Almighty, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God!"

For sponsors Kent had his Brothers York and Wales, the latter with a snuffly cold. Gorgeous in scarlet and ermine the three brothers left together after Kent had sat for a few moments in the chair of state to the left of the Throne.

P:Sat up munching crackers and sipping sherry until 4:12 a. m.--the latest session of the House of Lords since 1887--as Labor peers asked endless questions anent the "Sedition Bill" (TIME, Nov. 12), all courteously answered by Viscount Hailsham, His Majesty's Secretary of State for War, once famed as Attorney General Sir Douglas Hogg (TIME, May 16, 1927).

When their Lordships rose, the sedition-squelcher had passed second reading after lurid revelations by Baron Allen of Hurtwood, a close friend of Scot MacDonald. "A plot has been discovered to seize the British Broadcasting House and make a coup d'etat like that attempted in Vienna last July," began Lord Allen. He ended by admitting that the plotters "went no further than to think of preparation of plans."

The Commons:

P:Rejected (219-to-47) the proposal for national lotteries which passed the Conservative Party Congress (TIME, Oct. 15), but was turned down on second thought by the Party chiefs. Sententiously, pious Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour reminded the House that "in the past British lotteries became most vicious."*

P:Rejected (279-to-68) a Labor motion to outlaw private arms manufacture in Great Britain. Cool, sarcastic Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon headed off demands for an armaments inquisition by making the one held by the U. S. Senate appear uncouth. In eight hours of hot debate the munitions business received the most notable airing it has ever had in the House of Commons.

"This trade is a trade in murder!" rasped Major Clement Richard Attlee, presenting Labor's motion. "Armament companies, while not the sole nor the greatest cause of war, deliberately work against peace and disarmament. Take Vickers [Britain's No. 1 armorers]. In 1932 Vickers advertised its wares in German papers--weapons forbidden to Germany by the Treaty of Versailles! And who made the anarchy in China? It exists because China is one of the best fields for selling guns and munitions. Because nationals of the Civilized World have been arming the Chinese bandits!"

Up for Vickers unashamed spoke Sir Jonah Walker Smith, the right honorable member from their naval shipyard district of Barrow-in-Furness. "The investigators of the United States Senate used gangster methods," said Sir Walker with every out ward sign of indignation. "The activities of Sir Charles Craven [Managing Di rector of Vickers-Armstrong's Works & Shipyards] have for their object the finding of as much employment as possible for 30,000 men."

Cheers rang out as Sir John Simon, taking the same line, sarcastically referred to a telegram "which was read as though it were evidence [at the U. S. Senate inquiry] asserting that no less a person than His Majesty the King had sent for the Polish Ambassador and impressed upon him the importance of purchasing whatever he wanted from an English firm." Making no explicit denial, Sir John continued "Of course, that is perfectly and entirely grotesque. All of us, to whatever party we belong, know His Majesty to be perfectly incapable of having any connection with this silly story."

Sir John then dwelt on the advantage to the State of having private capital assume the risk of maintaining in peacetime arsenals on which the State's very existence depends in time of war. When Major Attlee compared the armament traffic to the whiteslave traffic and insisted that at the very least the manufacture of munitions should be taken out of private hands and made a prerogative of government, Sir John Simon neatly beclouded the issue with a sneer, "Does the Right Honorable Member mean that privately-owned brothels are wrong but state-owned brothels right?" Finally and flatly Sir John said that the National Government of ex-Pacifist and ex-Socialist James Ramsay MacDonald will not permit a "roving inquiry" of the U. S. Senate type in Great Britain. "If we could have an inquiry which really studied the question of State monopolies we would make no difficulty about it," he loftily concluded. But left was the clear impression that no British munitions inquiry whatever will be held if the Government can stop it.

P:Received from Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon a few reassuring but purely formal observations touching the prospect of violence in the Saar.

Sir John said he had received from German Ambassador Leopold von Hoesch "solemn assurance" that no invasion of the Saar by Germany will occur. Expressing his "satisfaction," Sir John then announced that "there has never been any question" of using British troops to restrain the invasion in question.

Finally Sir John was happy to report that French Ambassador Andre Charles Corbin told him last week that elaborate French preparations fortnight ago to move an army into the Saar on two hours notice if the Germans move first are "purely precautionary."

With all these assurances warming his old lawyer's cockles Sir John purred: "Thus we have the right to expect that, with due restraint in all quarters, the Saar plebiscite will be carried through in due order on Jan. 13 next."

P:Exchanged sly winks at the discomfiture of swank Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, grandson of the late Baron Gustave de Rothschild and socialite Undersecretary for Air, when his technical ignorance was exposed by Mrs. Mavis Tate, M. P., the air-minded member for West Willesden.

After Sir Philip had drawled perfunctorily that His Majesty's Government hope "within a month or two to announce plans for improving the air mails," Mrs. Tate chirped: "Can we have assurance that the question of aerodynamics will be taken into consideration in regard to speed? Is the Under-Secretary aware that in the Curtiss-Wright Condor machine, if the retractable undercarriage is let down, the speed is lowered 30 miles an hour?"

This left Sir Philip Sassoon without the power of speech while the House roared mirthful demands of "Answer! Answer!" Finally Sir Philip, reddening, answered with icy embarrassment, "All these important questions will, of course, be dealt with."

P:Roared again with mirth as super-sectionalism reared its head in the person of earnest Welsh Laborite Rhys Davies. He proposed "to restore to Wales the style and title of 'Dominion' used in official documents prior to the year 1800."

In the absence of the Scots Prime Minister, the English Lord President of the Council, beefy Mr. Stanley Baldwin, most typical of John Bulls, replied to the Principality of Wales amid guffaws.

"In the first place the term 'dominion' now has a different significance from what it had in 1800,"* said Mr. Baldwin. "In the second place, if this is a proposal of aggrandizement to give Wales 'dominion status' then I must submit a plea that England, too, be not forgotten!"

Amid Homeric mirth another Welshman, David Evans, hotly insisted that "Wales wants to manage her own affairs!"

* The last government lottery was sanctioned by King George IV in 1824. *Not until 1855 was Newfoundland constituted the first Dominion in the modern sense. * Not until 1926 was Dominion Status defined by mutual agreement that "The self-governing Dominions are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown."

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