''Degradation"

Ever since Britain has had a Cabinet to govern it, a Cabinet Minister who could not bring himself to agree with his fellows was expected to resign. This unbroken precedent was broken last week.

Ever since the National Government came into power it was understood that one of its chief duties would be to enact a general tariff. But last week four Cabinet Ministers, free traders all their lives, gagged and refused to swallow the tariff. They were wizened Viscount Snowden, Sir Herbert Samuel, Sir Donald MacLean and Sir Archibald Sinclair. From a solemn Cabinet at No. 10 Downing St., Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald emerged with an announcement: Cabinet members who were unable to agree with the majority were at liberty to speak and to vote against the bill in Parliament. The move saved the Cabinet, but political opponents raged.

"I haven't the ghost of an idea what it means," snorted Liberal Lloyd George. "I should have thought it was the business of those brought in to govern, to govern."

"It is a revolution in British government," shuddered the Conservative Morning Post. "The expedient is unsound and cannot well succeed."

Angriest of all was famed white-whiskered Laborite George Lansbury: "It is the most extraordinary situation the country has ever witnessed," he shouted. "If Commons permits such a thing to happen it will be the very last word in the degradation of Democracy."

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