Parliament's Week

GREAT BRITAIN The Commons: P: Chuckled at a whimsy of Sir Arthur M. Samuel, Conservative M. P., onetime Financial Secretary of the Treasury, who had just returned from the U. S. To fellow M. P.'s who quizzed him about the U. S., Sir Arthur handed a card on which is printed:

"I do not understand the Roosevelt plan. "Nor does Mr. Roosevelt. "So please don't ask me to explain it. "Ask the Brainstorm Trust."

P:Received from Sir Henry Bucknall Betterton, Minister of Labor, precisely the sort of bill to "reform" the British Dole which might be expected from a graduate of Rugby and Christ Church College, Oxford, and a member of the arch-Tory Carlton Club.

Sir Henry's bill made Laborites see red and swear purple. It would take discretion in dole cases away from the local boards appointed by Britain's municipal councils, many of which have just been captured by Labor in sweeping gains at the last municipal elections (TIME, Nov. 13). A central government board, staffed by civil servants, would administer a much restricted dole, based on division of the jobless into three classes: 1) "the occasionally unemployed"; 2) "the chronically unemployed"; and 3) "the unemployable destitute" who would get only such relief as is provided in the Poor Laws established by Queen Elizabeth. Able-bodied dole applicants could be sent, at the discretion of the government board, to "vocational training centres." Gone would be what wits have called "the dignity of living on the dole."

Not debated last week, Sir Henry's bill will come up for action after Parliament adjourns this week and at once reassembles to be "opened" by George V on Nov. 21 with his Cabinet's autumn declaration of policy, the Speech from the Throne.

P: Voted down by a smashing Conservative majority a resolution against the National Government's plan to extend the Labor Laws Act of 1920 which gives no protection as to working hours to children under 16.

"That measure was passed by war profiteers!" stormed Lady Astor, opposing the Government despite the fact that she is a Conservative. Continued the Noble Lady: "We [Conservatives] are supposed to back the Government but we sometimes feel more like kicking you than backing you!"

P: Ho-hummed at an announcement by President of the Board of Trade Walter Runciman that His Majesty's Government in Great Britain will withdraw on Dec. 7 from President Roosevelt's once-famed "Tariff Truce" (TIME, May 22).

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