Monday, Jul. 22, 1935

Parliament's Week The Commons:

P: Tut-tutted as the Labor Opposition's spleen erupted all week in hot weather blasts against the National Government.

Normally genial, Labor Party Leader "Old George" Lansbury smelled "corruption" in the fact that James Ramsay Mac-Donald, although no longer Prime Minister, continues to draw -L-2,000 ($10,000) yearly in the sinecure of Lord President of the Council while his son Malcolm, as Colonial Secretary, draws -L-,.000 ($25,000). Roared Old George: "If any local council had taken two of its members and given them relatively these same positions there would have been an instant uproar in Parliament and Prime Minister MacDonald would have protested as loudly as anyone."

"That five thousand pounds a year for Malcolm MacDonald," shouted a Laborite backbencher, "was the price of his father's resignation as Prime Minister!"

Stung, new Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin boomed, "It is not true!"

Cried Laborite Jock McGovern, "This Government has been run by Laurel and Hardy! They have changed places and Hardy is now Prime Minister. Then they have brought in a member of the former Prime Minister's family -- they have brought in Jackie Coogan as Colonial Secretary!"

Even more embittered than Scot Jock McGovern, Welshman George Daggar snarled: "The passing of the former Prime Minister will do no harm. Some of us would like to read the news in the paper that he had done the best thing, that is, go out and hang himself!"

P: The Labor Party, thus beside itself with rage at the National Government, made the tactical mistake of proposing a motion of censure on the issue of relieving unemployment just the day after the number of unemployed in the United Kingdom was revealed last week to have fallen to 2,000,000--the lowest figure in five years.

Introduced by fiery Laborite Arthur Greenwood, the motion proposed, with Socialist-intellectual wordiness, to censure the "Government's failure to produce a considered plan to cope with unemployment."

This gave unintellectual Prime Minister Baldwin the perfect opening for a perfect English retort. "We are being censured for not having any considered plan." said Stanley Baldwin easily. "I have never been a slave to a word. If there is a word that has been ridden to death today it is the word PLAN. I have seen nothing of planning in any foreign country that would lead me to think it is a universal panacea. I don't exactly know what plan is. For some kinds of plans there are books and pamphlets undertaking to cure unemployment.

"I have never promised to cure unemployment and I shall never stand on a platform with anybody who does promise it. I think I can say of our action during the time we have been in office that we have made a considerable contribution toward it."

In no other country, perhaps, could a Prime Minister get away with bumbling Mr. Baldwin's amazing penultimate sentence. The House of Commons promptly squelched Labor's motion to censure, 450-to-76.

P: Warmed somewhat to glacial Sir John Simon, long unpopular when Foreign Secretary, as his first important act in his new job of Home Secretary proved to be a reprieve for the popular "Rats' Murderer," George Percy Stoner (TIME, April 22; June 17).

Eighteen-year-old Chauffeur Stoner, a consumer of cocaine sandwiches, egged on by his neurotic 38-year-old mistress, Mrs. Francis Mawson Rattenbury, murdered her 67-year-old husband whom she had always called by the pet name "Rats." So harshly did English public opinion crack down on Mistress Rattenbury that she soon committed suicide while 300,000 English signatures piled up on a mercy petition for young Stooge Stoner who had been sentenced to hang. An appeal by Stoner's lawyers was dismissed by the Lord Chief Justice as "a mere waste of time." The Lords of Appeal apparently felt that public opinion had gone hog-wild in sympathy for a youth who most certainly ought to hang.

Ballot-wise, the House of Commons buzzed with approval last week as Home Secretary Sir John Simon decreed a 20-year jail sentence for Rats's murderer, with possibility of earlier release for good conduct. In gushing editorials Britons were reminded that at the worst Stoner will be only 38 when released "with a full life before him."

P: Jumped to a conclusion that His Majesty's Government have decided to reject the vote-getting New Deal scheme of David Lloyd George to "spend Britain back to Prosperity" (TIME, Dec. 24) when Prime Minister Baldwin sharply condemned the present extravaganza of public works in "a very great country"--i. e. the U. S.

At once Mr. Lloyd George sent a note by page to the Prime Minister. For weeks the Welshman has been on pins & needles, hoping to be asked to join the Government which has taken his New Deal seriously enough to ask him to submit it in draft form and to keep this draft secret while the Cabinet considers it. Last week Mr. Lloyd George in his note demanded back his New Deal with full permission to publish it. For answer big, calm English Baldwin crossed the House, sat down on an opposition bench beside the excited little Welshman and asked him to continue to wait a bit.

P:Forced Prime Minister Baldwin to admit, grudgingly but imperturbably, that he may have bumbled when he created for his swank protege Captain Anthony Eden the office of Minister for League of Nations Affairs at -L-3,000 ($15,000) per year alongside Sir Samuel Hoare who is the regular Foreign Secretary at the regular -L-5,000 ($25,000).

"This is a temporary arrangement--one that I think may last," comfortably observed Mr. Baldwin. "Of course it would be awkward if they should have serious differences of opinion since they are equal members of the Cabinet. Time alone will show whether what is an experiment will succeed. If it fails, I shall have to try something else."

P: Ridiculed the Prime Minister's other protege Lord Eustace Percy, who is an unattached Minister Without Portfolio, also at -L-3,000 per year, for resoundingly back-slapping Protege Eden. "Captain Eden," declared Lord Eustace Percy, "is the greatest diplomatic genius this country has produced for a generation."

P: Regretted that the first woman M. P. remains so incurably trivial a headline-snatcher when Lady Astor, showing the neat ankle of a Langhorne of Virginia, introduced the topic of her openwork silk stockings. After publicly regretting that she has to import them from the U. S. and pay a stiff British duty, the Noble Lady was informed by Dr. Edward L. Burgin, Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade, that she can "Buy British" openwork silk stockings.

Confident that he was pleasing Lady Astor, Dr. Burgin then drew further attention to her neat ankle by remarking, "I shall be glad to present the Noble Lady with a British-made pair of the best openwork silk stockings, if she will promise to wear them in this House."

P: Were pleasantly bewildered by an extremely vague but optimistic speech from new Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare. aptly summed up by the Manchester Guardian thus: "He swam the whole world in no time at all without ever putting his foot on solid ground."

Keynote of the speech was a patronizing appeal to Chancellor Hitler, who was mentioned by name, and to all other heads of States for "a little more common sense and a little more of the kindly tolerance that we believe has been one of the best characteristics of the British people."

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