The Week in Parliament
Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes: This has been a lively week in the House of Commons. The distinguished strangers who sat in the Galleries at question-time on Tuesday saw an admirable example of the working of the Parliamentary machine. Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd was fiercely cross-examined on the shortage of household coal supplies, and his assertion, on the authority of the Lord Provost of Glasgow, that everyone in that city had coal was at once contradicted by Messrs. McGovern and Maclean. Mr. Malcolm MacDonald's statement on Colonial Empire Policy was well received, though he will need to give much fuller reasons for the Government's decision not to publish the full report of the West India Royal Commission. At the end of questions the House received with vociferous approval Mr. Chamberlain's Palmerstonian declaration on the rescue from the Alunark ' and the attitude of Norway. Finally the House turned its attention to the Old Age Pensions Bill, but not before Mr. Aneurin Bevan had protested to Mr. Speaker against the form of the Money Resolution. The whole question of the drafting of such Resolutions is ex- tremely technical, but this does not deter Mr. Bevan, who revels in complex issues and fine distinctions. He should have been either a Chancery barrister or a theologian.
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