Parliament's Week

The Lords

P: Angrily debated a motion recommending that the Covenant of the League of Nations be so revised that Sanctions can never again be applied nor breach of a frontier be cited by the League as grounds for punishing the treaty-breaker.

"All nations break treaties when it suits them. We have done so ourselves!" snorted Lord Arnold. "I have heard a great deal of talk in the last few days about breaking treaties, and people have spoken with moral indignation about powers which broke treaties. Such talk leaves me cold. I am getting very tired of this!"

The Bishop of London verged close to associating himself with Lord Arnold in a speech telling Their Lordships that, "I do not for one moment excuse what Germany has done, but after all. . . ."

"Misguided friends of Ethiopia," cried Lord Mansfield, "brought about rejection of the Hoare-Laval proposals, wherefore Ethiopia will now have to accept worse terms!"

Finally the shocking, aristocratic candor of Their Lordships became so excessive that popular Lord Cecil, a great maker of addresses at middle-class League of Nations meetings, intervened to dampen the shocks. "As long as we remain members of the League and signatories of its Covenant," Lord Cecil reminded Their Lordships, "we are bound to carry out our obligations under that Covenant. I regard the motion with misgiving because it would mean that we no longer would be bound by provisions of a treaty we had deliberately signed. That is a doctrine which is not only extremely dangerous but in my judgment is highly immoral."

The Commons:

P: Debated His Majesty's Government's "blank check armament program" (TIME, March 16), the House having to decide whether to vote approval of unlimited armament expenditure, with $1,500,000,000 understood to be the total provisionally favored by Stanley Baldwin.

"Munitions makers are today the most sinister influence in the British body politic!" debated prominent Laborite Arthur Greenwood. "It is unfortunate that we have witnessed the passing of a great Prime Minister. Politically Baldwin is dead; spiritually he is damned! Neither the Prime Minister nor his supporters ever really believed in the League of Nations."

Debated the Prime Minister: "With the view of obtaining collective security, we are members of the League of Nations. . . . Whatever the reason, collective security in the case of Italy and Abyssinia was not able to prevent the outbreak of war. . . .

"The whole essence of modern war is surprise, and what gives one power a greater advantage over another is not only the readiness of that power for war but the readiness of that power, having embarked on war, to continue the war with no diminution in supplies of munitions. This means that the country which has made its preparations beforehand with its munitions reserves is in an incomparably stronger position than a country which would have to improvise in the situation that might arise after the outbreak of war.

"Therefore you are brought to the very terrible conclusion that if the countries of Europe desire to check an aggressor, whosoever he may be, by making the aggressor realize his action will bring all the other members of the League upon him immediately, then the countries of Europe --it is horrible to think I have to say it--will have to be much readier for war than they are today; otherwise the aggressor will have his own way.

"To secure peace in the name of peace you have got to have increased armaments and be ready. I said that is a terrible conclusion, but it is a conclusion you cannot escape." '

By a vote of 371-to-153 the House approved Britain's new armament program. Same day Britain's leading armorers, Vickers Ltd., raised their ordinary dividend from 6% to 8%. Same day Lloyd's, which normally will "insure against anything," abruptly ceased insuring against a European war.

P: Jerked their gaze toward the Bar of the House as lean, hawk-visaged Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain entered saying loudly: "A message from the King to this House, signed by His Majesty's own hand!"

Walking gravely forward amid dead silence, Mr. Chamberlain handed mourning King Edward's message on black-bordered Parchment to the Speaker, who intoned its words: "The demise of the Crown renders it necessary that renewed provision shall be made for the civil list. . . . His Majesty desires that the contingency of his marriage should be taken into account. . . . There should be provision for Her Majesty the Queen and the members of his family. . . . His Majesty recommends consideration of these several matters to his Faithful Commons and relies on their attachment to his person and family to adopt such measures as may be suitable for the occasion."

"May I ask," said Laborite Will Thorne, "whether His Majesty has given any guarantee that he is going to get married?" (guffaws).

"Tomorrow," declared the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "I shall move that a select committee be appointed to take His Majesty's message under consideration."*

* With scant consideration for His Majesty's privacy or the dignity of the crown, sensational newsorgans throughout Britain made this technical motion an occasion for recalling that Lady Mary Cambridge is the only British woman ever quoted as having said that her hand was sought by Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales. Another vulgarity was the printing by London's Star of a picture of a question mark captioned "Her Majesty the Queen." It was recalled that the London Times in 1920 advised the present King to marry a British girl "for love." Even the dignified New York Herald Tribune described the great officers of state as sitting around in Buckingham Palace making bets with each other on His Majesty's intentions. "Betting in court circles," stated the Herald Tribune as a fact last week, "was that he would marry the former [German] Crown Prince's daughter Cecilie."

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