24 FEBRUARY 1933, Page 3

Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : The event of the

week in Parliament has been Mr. Chamberlain's speech upon unemployment in the Vote of Censure debate, which, whatever its not inconsiderable oratorical merits, was quite out of tune with the spirit of the House of Commons. His argument was that the Government had done most of what it is possible to do at home, and can only wait until its efforts to obtain international agreement bear fruit. Moreover, he warned his audience that, in view of the replacement of human labour by machinery, a reduction of unemployment to a small figure was not to be counted upon for ten years. Mean- while the country must " keep pegging away." There was clearly a lot of sound sense in this speech, because much harm has been done by assuming that heavy unemployment is essentially ephemeral ; but the sound sense was masked by the dismal though not despairing attitude of the speaker. * * * *