Parliament's Week

The Lords-- P:Approved a sharp warning by War Minister Viscount Hailsham that two years in jail is still the legal penalty for blabbing what has been said at a Cabinet meeting. Lord Hailsham left no doubt that his words were a hit at blabbing Commoner David Lloyd George.

"Certainly there has been a perfect orgy of this sort of thing," cried Baron Rankeil-lour. "I greatly fear that some of His Majesty's ministers and former ministers have forgotten the context of their oath."

Amid strong cheers from Their Lordships the attempted squelching of Mr. Lloyd George was endorsed by Viscount Sankey, England's Lord Chancellor who "ventured to hope" that Lord Hailsham's warning would stop "Cabinet leakage" (see below).

P:Learned that Lord Hailsham is the biggest talker in the House of Lords, with 265 columns of the Parliamentary Gazette to his credit for the short session from Nov. 3 to Nov. 17. In the same period Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald addressed only 83 columns of remarks to the House of Commons.

The Commons--C. Heard fiery David Lloyd George retort in fighting terms to Noble Lords who think he has been indiscreet about keeping Cabinet secrets (see above).

"It is rather a new thing when members of the House of Lords begin to threaten members of the Commons [with] two years in jail!" shouted the Welshman, and he rehashed his dispute with Sir Robert Home as to what they both said at Cabinet sessions in 1922 (when Sir Robert was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Lloyd George was Prime Minister) about the terms on which Great Britain could agree to fund her War debt to the U. S.--an operation subsequently performed by Stanley Baldwin after the Lloyd George Cabinet's fall (TIME, April 25).

"If I were sent to jail I would be sent in the company of Sir Robert Home," stormed Mr. Lloyd George, "and he and I might pass a very merry Christmas there! There are two or three members of the present Government who would also have to go [to jail]. ... I have seen no end of Cabinet disclosures from them! I give fair warning [to the House of Lords] that whatever the threats may be--by Peers I created or Peers created by my successors --it will not have the slightest influence on my conduct."

P:Swelled the total of Great Britain's "dole" payments in 1932-33 to -L-120,000,000 ($399,600,000) by voting an additional -L-19,000,000 last week while 1,000 London "bobbies" guarded Parliament because Britain's 2,800,000 unemployed were Oliver Twisting for more.

Since the current British budget is based on estimated receipts of -L-764,275,000, Mother Britain is now spending nearly one-sixth of her current tax revenue on seeing her needy through. P:Voted with maximum grumbling from all parties a loan of 100,000,000 schillings ($14,000,000) to the Government of Austria. "Throwing good money after bad, that's what we're doing!" cried Conservative Sir Arthur Samuel, M. P., despite a firm reminder from Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain, also Conservative, that the 100,000,000 schillings are only Britain's share of the Five-Power loan pledged to Austria under League auspices last July.

"In financial matters," snorted Liberal George Lambert, M. P., "it seems we are being dragged at the wobbly chariot wheels of the League of Nations!"

"Austria is making a valiant effort," said Mr. Chamberlain icily, "to carry out her side of the bargain." P:Voted with surprising cheerfulness to pay the current instalment of -L-3,410,955 ($11,324,370) in "Irish annuities" which the Free State under President Eamon de Valera has refused to pay (TIME, July 25, et ante). These annuities go to Britons who once owned land now belonging to the Free State. The comparative good humor of the House last week was due to reports that the retaliatory duties which Britain laid on Free State goods when the Dail refused to pay have already yielded -L-1,357,150 bear upon Free State commerce with a crushing weight expected to make Dublin yield sooner or later.

To gloss over the House's evident pleasure at what British reprisals are doing to Ireland, the Prime Minister's second son Malcolm MacDonald, Under-Secretary for Dominions, remarked with appropriate gloom that "His Majesty's Government is deeply sorry."

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