Parliament's Week

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

House of Commons:

P: Following the uproar of Parliament over the propriety of Cabinet Ministers (Lord Birkenhead, in particular) writing articles for the press, Premier Stanley Baldwin announced in the House that he had spoken about the matter to Lord Birkenhead, who promised to cease his interesting journalistic efforts, except for a monthly magazine to which he was under contract to write a number of historical papers. "The rule may, therefore, be taken as reestablished,"* observed the Premier, "that members during their term of office will not contribute to journalism."

P: Sir W. L. M. Thompson, Postmaster General, promised a return "within the life of this Parliament" to a penny (two cents) postage for letters. The present rule is a penny ha'penny (three cents). A better telephone service was also promised.

P: A bill, recently debated in the Lords (TIME, June 22), to prevent cruelty to animals, came up for discussion. Brigadier General Cockerill (Conservative), in defending the flea, indignantly observed that that maxim De minimis non curat Iex meant that "The flea doesn't worry the Home Secretary." Although the flea was not an animal or a reptile, he thought fleas should be included in the bill.

"The flea has no friends," continued the General amid laughter. "I am sorry to say it was ex-Speaker Lord Ullswater who led the vendetta in the Lords against the flea. I trust nothing was in the Speaker's chair which accounts for Lord Ullswater's ferocity. If it had been the woolsack, there might have been something in it."

"After all," he concluded, "I shall not introduce an amendment to the bill in favor of fleas. I cannot bring myself to permit a flea to provoke a serious constitutional quarrel between the two Houses."

*Before the War, it was an unheard of thing for a Member of the Government to write for the newspapers, although Gladstone once wrote an article for a U. S. newspaper designed to "put before a vast body of working people a loftier ideal of life." For this he received $500.