4 DECEMBER 1936, Page 3

The Week in Parliament

Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes :—After the wide measure of agreement which the Public Order Bill and the Trunk Roads Bill have produced it seemed strange on Tuesday to return to a hotly contested debate on the Bill to prevent the carrying of arms in British ships to Spain. Mr. Runciman who introduced it clearly had no idea of the storm that it was about to cause. Nonchalantly, almost contemptuously, he read a statement from typewritten sheets held in front of him. When challenged on the question of the attitude of the Dominions he obviously did not know the answer and in fact treated the whole question as if it were a non- contentious measure about foot-and-mouth disease. *