Parliament's Week

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

House of Commons:

P: Ex-Premier George spoke eloquently apropos of the unhappy state of British agriculture. He began by stating that the kingdom imported last year $1,900,000,000 of foodstuffs that could have been grown at home. In 1913, said he, Britain grew 59% of her food; in 1924 only 48%. Between 1873 and 1922 pasturage land showed a decrease of 1 in every 100 acres, whereas Germany showed an increase of 5, Belgium 16, The Netherlands 12, Denmark 15, France an unspecified gain. He advocated "a ruthless survey without fear or favor, affection or ill will, of the state of our agricultural land and the use to which it is being put."

The survey, he concluded, should answer the following questions:

Is land being put to the best economic use?

Could more employment be given at a fair wage?

In what cases has the yield of the land been increased?

Is the laborer getting the same facilities for securing land in England as are his fellow laborers abroad?

How much land is available for small holdings?

P:" In a discussion of the industrial situation, J. R. dynes, ex-Lord Privy Seal in the late Labor Cabinet, called the attention of the House to what a Conservative member subsequently agreed was a "vulgar display of luxury" by so-called "high society." Actually Mr. Clynes was attacking London's last social season, the most brilliant since the War. Said he: "There were never such dinners, never such parties, never such dancing, never such dressing and jewelry."

This "unrestrained exhibition of extravagance," he added, aggravated the dissatisfaction of the masses.

P: Following the well-defined tendency to lay the blame for all Britain's economic ailments at the door of the Government's gold standard policy, a determined attack on Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill's financial policy was launched by Laborite Lees-Smith, an economist. The attack followed the usual technical theme of stating that the Chancellor was conserving the gold standard by an embargo on foreign and colonial loans, which, of course, means that Britain cannot, under existent conditions, stimulate trade without granting credits in the shape of loans. This accusation of a false policy was interesting for the clear-cut reply which it evoked from the Chancellor.

Mr. Churchill began by asking if the Labor Party really wished to follow Prof. John. Maynard Keynes' policy of a managed currency (TIME, Apr. 6, BUSINESS). If so, he taunted, it was possible for His Majesty's Government to cut the value of wages in half by inflation, or for a Labor Government to liquidate all private property by the same means. Inflation, he said, was equivalent to a grocer juggling with his weights and measures.

Concluding, he said: "If instead of restoring the gold standard we had regulated credit with exclusive regard to industry without troubling at all about foreign exchanges, we could no doubt have kept our export trade continuously booming at a loss until one exchange crisis after another had so undermined our international credit as to send the pound in the same direction in which the old German mark has gone.

"We have chosen a different course and we await the day when any responsible political party will challenge the soundness, justice and prudence of our decision."

P: A long and heated debate on the settlement of the threatened coal strike by the subsidization of the industry (TIME, Aug. 10) ended in the passage of an appropriation of $50,000,000 by 351 to 18 votes. Loud laughter and cheers greeted this unexpected result; for it plainly showed that most of the Government's critics had voted for the Government, which seemed the least logical thing to do.

P: Ronald McNeill, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, having been plagued by one Ponsonby (Laborite) about the sad estrangement between Britain and Russia, accused that honorable gentleman of suffering from a "Soviet complex." He went on to call the Moscow autocrats "the greatest defaulters in modern history." It was unlikely, he concluded, that any commercial nation would do business with them until they gave up their policy of repudiating their past debts.

P: The House adjourned until Nov. 16.

The past session of Parliament left the country generally satisfied with the Conservative Government. Its record was neither too good nor very bad. The restoration of the gold standard had its critics, friendly and unfriendly. Mr. Churchill's budget, except for his social insurance bill (TIME, May 11), was popular. The same cannot be said for the naval program that was enacted (TIME, Aug. 3) ; its only friends seem to have been the die-hard Conservatives. On the negative side, little or nothing was done to solve such problems as housing, trade, unemployment, etc. Another problem which was not even touched upon was reform of the House of Lords, an important measure that must soon be introduced.

In the realm of foreign policy, it appeared as if Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain had deliberately destroyed the foundation laboriously built by Premier Ramsay Macdonald to make room for a grander edifice of his own design. Crises in Egypt, Mosul, India, China were met, if not satisfactorily, by seemingly efficient action. The famed security pact, sponsored by the League, was emasculated, killed (TIME, Mar. 23, INTERNATIONAL). In its place arose another security pact (TIME, June 15 et seq., INTERNATIONAL) which Mr. Chamberlain was prompt to sponsor (with limitations) as a means of stabilizing Europe and incidentally of improving British trade.

As an observer remarked: "Britain is, as usual, 'muddling through.' "