Shorter Notice
SEVERAL short books on Parliament have been published lately, one at least of them so good as to make any successor superfluous. None the less there is an obvious case for including the House of Commons in the " Britain in Pictures " series, and Mr. Martin Lindsay has done his work well. Beginning with a descripton of a day's Parlia- mentary proceedings, he devotes the main part of his book to a historical restrospect, following that with interesting details about the officials of the House, the place of the House of Commons in the Constitution and some notes on the membership of the House. Much is packed into little space, together with a certain number of errors and at least one very controversial obiter dictum. The word Cabal is not formed from the initials of the'five statesmen in King Charles II's reign ; derived from the Arabic Kabbala, it existed in the English language before 166o. Has Mr. Lindsay really ever heard in the House the prayer by Speaker Yelverton which he quotes? It is not the case that " in 1916 the Liberal Ministry was replaced by a Coalition " ; the Liberal Ministry had ceased to be in May, 1915. To say that in 1919 Lady Astor was elected " and the first woman M.P. took her seat in Parliament " is ambiguous, but can be defended. Actually the first woman M.P. to be elected (in 1918) was Countess Markiewicz, but she never took her seat. One of Mr. Lindsay's expressions of opinion will provoke sharp disse??t. Many M.P.s, he observes, " have to neglect the nation's affairs while dissipating much of their time and energy upon the day-to-day business of earning a living " ; he hOpes consequently that Members will one day have the courage to vote themselves an adequate expenses allowance. If and when that happens we shall be breeding a class of professional politicians, trying to get into the 1-Thuse for the sake of the salary, and excluding those Members who today bring to Parliamentary discussions an immense volume of practical experience in every sphere of industrial, commercial and professional life.
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