Parliament's Week

The Commons--

P:Dropped all regular business to cry "Shame! Shame! The liberty of a British subject has been violated!" when Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour tried clumsily to defend three Scotland Yard detectives who had mistakenly seized a small and wholly innocent subject of George V just outside Victoria Station.

"He thought the detectives were bandits and clung to an iron railing!" roared Brigadier General Edward Spears M. P., defending British Subject G. D. Fitzpatrick, a youthful officer in the Royal Air Force. ''The detectives twisted his arm, pulled his tie into a tight knot around his neck and dragged him off."

"As soon as he discovered they were really detectives," cried Labor Leader George Lansbury, "he went quietly!"

Icily the Home Secretary retorted. "If Mr. Fitzpatrick will call at Scotland Yard. I am sure the Commissioner, Lord Trenchard, will depute an official to see him."

Amid fresh cries of "Shame!" irate M. P.'s exacted a promise that there be no "deputing." Thus, few days later Lord Trenchard, who happens also to be Air Marshal commanding the R. A. .F., had the painful experience of apologizing personally to one of his youngest officers.

P:Craned their necks to peer at Professor Albert Einstein who walked into the distinguished strangers' gallery wearing a white linen suit while his friend, Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson M. P., flayed Hitlerite persecution of Jews, offered a bill to extend to Jewish refugees greater facilities for obtaining British citizenship.

''Today Professor Einstein is without a home!" cried Commander Locker- Lampson. "When he is asked to put his address in visitors' books in England he has to write 'ohne' (without). The Huns have stolen his savings, plundered his place of residence and even taken his beloved violin.* How proud this country must be to have offered him shelter at Oxford. . . ."

Impressed, the House voted Commander Locker-Lampson's bill through first reading. The Commander rivals Sir Oswald Mosley as an organizer of British Fascists, heads a blue-shirted league of ''Sentinels of Empire" whose motto is Fear God! Fear Naught! (TIME, July 6, 1931). By coming out squarely against brown-shirted antiSemitism, Blue-Shirt Locker-Lampson placed his movement in line to receive contributions from wealthy British Jews. In Berlin next day he was called a "knight of opportunism" by Chancellor Hitler's personal newsorgan Der Voelkischer Beobachter which headlined EINSTEINIAN JEW SHOW IN HOUSE OF COMMONS! P:Cheered an official announcement that the No. 2 Hitlerite, paunchy Captain Hermann Wilhelm Goring, German Air Minister and Prussian Premier, had applied to His Majesty's Government for permission to purchase "police airplanes" in England (contrary to Germany's treaty obligations) and had been sharply rebuffed.

P:Adjourned to Nov. 7 with the traditional cry of "Who Goes Home?" after refusing to debate seriously the most important issue raised last week in the house: Japan's cutthroat competition by means of her depreciated yen with British textile manufacturers in the Far East market.

Eager to adjourn, the House virtually ignored two soldierly British textile champions. "The yellow peril is now upon us in a far more insidious form than war!" cried Lieut.-Commander Frederick W. Astbury. "Unless the Government can take immediate action every calico print ing plant in Lancashire will be closed within five years!"

A few cheers greeted Major Cyril F. Entwistle when he shouted, "It is necessary for us and other countries to tell Japan quite clearly that she must conform to western standards of living or her goods must be prohibited from entering other countries!"

Since it would take at least the British Navy to enforce such a policy, the House of Commons dodged the issue by adjourning with a relatively clear conscience.

*Also his sailboat.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.