Certainly the vote on the India debate, when the Diehards
obtained nearly double the support in the lobby that the Government had expected, has suggested that there may be, in the not far distant future, a com- plete change in Party alignments. The analogy with the Corn Laws is being freely quoted. Just as Peel carried the Corn Laws and broke the Tory party in the process, so Mr. Baldwin, though he will carry the bulk of his Party with him on the India Bill, may find, when it is over, that it is irrevocably split. So far the danger is remote. Mr. Churchill is not a Lord George Bentinck and in any case he will have to win a far larger following than seems at present likely, before he can hope to break up the existing combination. It is no wonder that all the interest of this week in Parliament has centred in the lobbies and the smoking rooms, for, with the motion for the approval of the regulations issued under the Unemployment Assistance Act of 1984, debate in the Chamber has descended from the heights of constitu- tional principles into the valleys of " bread-and-butter " politics. What has made the three days' debate appear even deader after the India controversy is the fact that it is purely academic. No amendments are allowed. The regulations have to be accepted or rejected as they stand. All that the opposition have been able to do is to secure the correction of a misprint.
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