AT WESTMINSTER
Sir Thomas Dugdale's promise to make a statement on Crichel Down fed a curiosity that was already burning fiercely. Mr. Head followed with a brief statement on the IRA raid on the Armagh barracks. This statement would have left little mark but for the intervention of Mr. Logan, the Member for the Scotland division of Liverpool. " Is it a fact," he asked in a wonderfully flat voice, that an ordinary civilian walked in and held up a barracks ? " " No, sir, it is not a fact," replied Mr. Head—but the House was already convulsed. The greatly missed Frisby Dyke could not have scored a greater success than did Mr. Logan. After all this Sir Winston rose to announce his visit to the President.
* * * The report of the inquiry into the sale of land at Crichel Down raises the issue of this Government's policy on the dis- posal of land bought compulsorily for public purposes, and this is to be debated soon in the House. It was quite, clear from the exchanges on Tuesday that a sharp engagement will be fought. Labour does not want the State to sell back to private owners any land that it has once bought. The Tories favour re-sale; and although Sir Andrew Clark's report on Crichel Down excuses the Minister of Agriculture from any responsibility for the muddles and evasions which occurred during the protracted transactions, it shows clearly that Sir Thomas Dugdale lacked the acuteness to realise that one of his first duties as Minister of Agriculture in a Conservative Government would be to end Labour's veto on the sale of State land, and the force to see that this change of policy was applied. In fact, the Minister spent the first year of his office in finding out if he was allowed to sell land at all.
* * * Personal matters have made this a sad week for Parliament. The Lords on Tuesday consideied the claim that in justice to Admiral Sir Dudley North a public inquiry should be held into his removal from high command during the war. Mr. Richard Stokes advanced this claim in the Commons before the recess and promised then, in view of the Admiralty's resistance, to repeat the claim. He did so this week. Lord Salisbury was equally stiff on behalf of the Admiralty in the Lords, but there is no sign at all that the Government is doing anything but harden the advocates of an inquiry. It is a distressing affair. The Lords abandoned their business for Wednesday, as a result of the death of Lord Camrose, whose son-in-law, Lord Birkenhead, was to have replied to a debate on that day. In the Cotnmons, the party leaders paid tribute on Tuesday to the work and character of Arthur Greenwood, who died last week. His son, the Member for Rossendale, was present in the House and heard expressions of the affection and respect in which his father had been so widely held.
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