Tuesday's papers contained a letter addressed to a corre- spondent
by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald declaring that the Labour Party "as a party" would adopt the Insurance Bill when Parliament met. He adds that "opinions contrary to that are only private to not more than two or three members of the party at the very outside." This statement has been very generally discounted by those who remember that Mr. MacDonald's attitude towards the Bill is that of a Minis- terialist rather than of a member of the Labour Party. The contrary view is represented by Mr. Philip Snowdon, who has recently made several speeches against the Bill. Speaking at Paisley on Wednesday, he said that he thought it would be better to have no Bill at all than a Bill which, when it became law, would, owing to the irritation it would arouse, react on future social legislation. If the Bill were to be passed before Christmas, it could only be by passing whole pages of the measure without a word of discussion.
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