Parliament's Week

The Lords:

P:Received with high approval and respect a plea in behalf of Britons now in jail for debt from the 1st Baron Snell, an eminent Fabian Socialist whose parents were farm laborers and who relates in Who's Who that he has worked as a "groom, ferryman and potman."

After withered Bachelor Lord Snell had pointed out that in 1933 alone 2,416 persons were jailed for debt in the British Isles, the Archbishop of Canterbury joined numerous Noble Lords in declaring that ''no delinquent should ever be imprisoned for any type of debt when nonpayment arises from inability to pay."

''In this respect they do things much better in the United States," said Lord Snell. "Over there last year an American judge expressed to me his admiration for our courts in England, and I was thankful he did not know of the blot* on our system which we have been discussing this afternoon."

The Commons:

P:Were astounded at a slip of the tongue by social-climbing Dominions Secretary James Henry ("Jim") Thomas. That onetime engine greaser seemed to imply that His Majesty's Government plan to avoid the general election constitutionally due by November 1936, at the latest, by declaring the Empire in a "state of emergency" under which the National Government could rule for three years more.

Babbled Genial Jim, orating at a London banquet after tossing off many a beaker: "When the next General Election comes--and that will not be for some years--perhaps three years. . . ."

P:Had to send an emergency call for 500 foot and 50 mounted police because increasingly unpopular Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald that morning brusquely refused to receive a delegation of 50 unemployed. Cried their leader: "Then mark my words, tonight we'll be at the House of Commons in hundreds!"

Startled M. P.s were squeezed and jostled in their outer lobby by perhaps 400 unemployed who chorused "Down with the National Government!" until ejected by the 550 police. Meanwhile, in the House, Secretary for Agriculture Major Walter Elliot, pelted from the public gallery with green protest leaflets by the unemployed, exclaimed both in sorrow and in anger: "They do not grasp a single measure we are taking in their behalf!"

P:Paid to visiting Chancellor of Austria Kurt Schuschnigg, a devout monarchist who returned last week to Vienna, the delicate compliment of placing on the order paper for future debate two bills postulating "the right of small nations to re-establish monarchies, if they so desire." The first bill referred to Austria, the second to Hungary.

P:Were dismayed amid their efforts to get through first reading the longest measure ever submitted to Parliament--the India Bill giving a more liberal status to the Empire's vast subcontinent (TIME, Dec. 3)--by news that at Bombay last week the turbaned and bejeweled Maharajas of India's Chamber of Princes adopted a resolution as follows: "This meeting desires to emphasize that in many respects the bill and the instrument of accession depart from agreements arrived at during the meetings of representatives of the Indian States with members of His Majesty's Government. It regrets to note that the bill and the instrument of accession do not secure those vital interests and fundamental requisites of the States on which they have throughout laid great emphasis. This meeting is of the definite opinion that, in their present form and without satisfactory modification and alteration of fundamental points, the bill and instrument of accession cannot be regarded as acceptable to the Indian States."

Instantly Tory Die-hard Winston Churchill leaped up to call the India Bill "dead." Perturbed. His Majesty's Government cabled the Speaker of India's Council of Princes, the pearl-bedecked Maharaja of Patiala, a pressing invitation to speed to London. Though Patiala is neither the biggest nor the richest of Indian States, it is the key State of the Sikh tribes of the Northern Punjabi plains which furnished nearly half of Britain's Indian troops in the War, and the Maharajas of Patiala have been strongly pro-British for 100 years. The present Maharaja is thus one of the most politically potent Princes in India. A huge, sinister man with a curled black beard, full contemptuous lips and heavy-lidded sensual eyes, he is an able, hard-working administrator, owns 300 automobiles, 42 of them Rolls-Royces, keeps the biggest kennels in India and is president of the All-India Gun Dog Club, has a corps of wives and one of the world's greatest collections of emeralds. When he headed the Indian delegation to the Round Table Conference in London, he strongly supported the India Bill. Since then he has crucially backslid. It seemed likely that he would accept last week's invitation, inasmuch as the rainy season is drawing near in Patiala.

Meanwhile Hearstian Viscount Rothermere peppered Indian potentates with cablegrams urging them to "Stand firm against the Bill!" Since pudding-headed Rothermere seems fated to fail in all political maneuvers, the Chamber of Princes promptly reacted by intimating to British correspondents that they have no desire to kill the India Bill, merely hope to obtain amendments more favorable to their rights as potentates. Snorted British Elder Statesman Sir Austen Chamberlain: "Let it be understood that we are not willing to allow this House to be driven from what they think right or to enter into a Dutch auction for the support of the princes.''*

Secretary for India Sir Samuel Hoare then won a vote of confidence on the Bill 283-to-89, and Liberal M. P. Isaac Foot gratuitously described Press Lord Rothermere's message as that of a "megalomaniac which should be condemned by all public-spirited people."

P:Received from the Government a White Paper proposing a thumping increase in British armaments, viewing German rearmament with alarm. Next day it pretended astonishment when, two days before Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon was to have arrived in Berlin for an attempt to persuade Adolf Hitler to sign with him the famed Eastern Locarno Pact (TIME. Feb. 18), Der Reichsfuehrer abruptly cancelled the parley "on account of a cold."

*Since the War Peers and Peeresses going bankrupt have averaged seven per year, but efforts to keep them out of jail nearly always succeed and no Peer or Peeress was in jail last week. In February 1934 His Grace the Duke of Leinster barely escaped incarceration by paying his irate tailor -L-67 ($355).

*A Dutch auction is the public offer of property at a high price, then at gradually lowering prices, until someone buys.

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