4 AUGUST 1939, Page 14

We are told by Mr. Chamberlain's newspapers that to propose

the reassembly of Parliament is " only another form of criticism of the Prime Minister." Surely such a statement is both dangerous and unfair. Dangerous, because it implies a Fiihrerprinzip under which the Legislature is precluded from questioning the Executive. Unfair, since it attributes false motives to men who are deeply perturbed by the dangers of the next two months, and since it ignores the unselfishness and good sense of the House as a whole. In the atmosphere created by such insinuations the adjournment comes to many of us, not as a welcome release from arduous duties, but as an autocratic gesture of dismissal.

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