A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
IT was rather a thin, but a keen and lively, House of Commons which reassembled on Tuesday after a Christmas recess of just over a month. There were the inevitable gaps. "How strange it seems," one Member who sits close to Miss Rathbone's old seat said sadly, "not to see Eleanor Rathbone come trundling in with her bags and papers." A notable figure has gone, and many M.P.s honoured her memory at St. Margaret's on Tuesday, when an admirable tribute was paid to this gifted University Member by another University Member, Sir Arthur Salter. . For the rest, some sixty odd out of the deluge of questions on the Order Paper were disposed of orally, the subjects engaging Members' attention most being demobilisation, particularly of university students and railwaymen, requisitioned property and the appointment of a Secretary of State for Wales, the latter topic providing the first healthy laugh of the day through a solemn warning by Mr. Peter Freeman (Newport) that an unfavour- able decision might lead to a plaint being laid before the United Nations. Mr. Eden made his debut as Opposition Leader (pro tem.), but it was foolish of some daily papers to interpret one or two good- humoured interchanges with Mr. Morrison as precursors of coming storms. If storms are in store—and with a considerable and conten- tious programme of legislation in prospect they well may be—neither of those two Right Hon. gentlemen is likely to be the prime cause.
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