Parliament's Week

The Lords & Commons:

P: Convened for the winter session amid a London pea-soup fog so dense and choking that for the first time in history the Sovereign left Buckingham Palace to open Parliament not in the gorgeous, drafty old State Coach but in his sleek, fog-tight Daimler. Even the Crown, which usually arrives in its own State Coach, was limousined.

In his speech from the Throne, George V ran rapidly over his Government's desire to do something for tramp steamers, herring, housing, agriculture and World Peace. ''Confidence and enterprise," declared the King-Emperor in his firm, resonant voice, ''has enabled this country to take the lead in world recovery."

P: When the Emperor of India got to the part of his speech in which he announced that, after seven years of toil, the India Report was ready (see col. 2). His Majesty said with visible emotion: "I pray that both your Houses, upon whom now rests the responsibility for deciding these issues, may approach the task before them with the single aim of furthering the well-being of my Empire."

The Commons:

P: Soberly received from Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald this veiled but momentous call to arms: "If now our armament is strengthened, as it will have to be on account of the needs of the nation, I believe that His Majesty's Government will never be accused of strengthening it for offensive purposes."

In well-informed circles the Conservative Party, seeing its "National Government" majority menaced by Labor's landslide gains in municipal elections (TIME, Nov. 12), was reported to have settled on the following strategy: Between now and the Royal Jubilee next spring when patriotic fervor will be at its height, the Government will work up an impressive war scare and spring a general election just after the Jubilee, on the well-tested theory that "the British public, when frightened, always votes Conservative."

P: Tut-tutted when Labor leader "Old George" Lansbury protested that the government had written into the King's speech "not one word about measures to lessen unemployment!"

P: Froze into shocked silence when the Independent Labor Party's most potent, earnest and respected Red, James Maxton, rose shaggy-haired and smouldering-eyed, to ask the Prime Minister "whether this House will have an opportunity to discuss" the upping of the Duke of Kent's civil list from -L-15,000 to -L-25,000 ($125.000) per year on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Marina (see p. 19).

"No," was Scot MacDonald's freezing answer to Scot Maxton. "Not at all!"

When another Laborite accused the Duke of Kent by inference of being a loafer and asked if -L-25,000 a year about covered the needs of an unemployed man and his wife, the Prime Minister resumed his seat without deigning to reply.

P: Beheld the graceful spectacle of England's greatest lawyer daintily eating crow, when Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon retracted his entire sneering speech against the U. S. Senate's arms inquiry (TIME, Nov. 19). Said urbane Sir John with perfect composure, "It is not usual in this House for a member to criticize his own speech, but I am going to undertake that unusual task. I am conscious of the fact --and I say it in all sincerity--that I did not succeed in a recent speech in presenting this subject in such a way that I created the desired impression. It is much better for me to say so. If a speech is to be judged not by the exact words used but by the impression which it creates, then mine was a most unfortunate speech. I now want to deal with the subject afresh."

He then promised a British armament inquiry by a Royal Commission which will have the same powers as the Senate's robust snoopers but will undoubtedly use them with more discretion, more finesse.

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