A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK P ROCEEDINGS before the Committee of Privileges
of the House of Commons always excite considerable interest, and there are elements in the Committee's report on the question raised by Mr. W. J. Brown, the Independent Member for Rugby, which seem likely to form the subject of rather lively debate in the House. Mr. Brown is Parliamentary General Secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Asso- ciation, and the complaint made was of certain actions by the Associa- tion calculated to influence him improperly in the exercise of his Parliamentary duties. The Committee itself has been weakened by the withdrawal from it of Mr. Herbert Morrison, and the conse- quential withdrawal of Mr. Churchill. It appears from its report that two draft reports were presented to the Committee, one, express- ing the view that improper pressure had been exercised by the Association, prepared by Mr. Clement Davies, Liberal, and supported by the two Conservative members of the Committee, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe and Lord Winterton ; the other, by the Attorney- General, asserting that there had been no improper pressure, sup- ported by all the Labour members of the Committee. In every divi- sion the same alignment was revealed. There is, of course, no ground for doubting that the individual Labour members sincerely held accordant views with one 'another and opposed to those of the Con- servative and Liberal members, or vice versa, but divisions following so consistently party lines are not frequent on this quasi-judicial committee, and on the whole it is satisfactory that they are not. At the same time it must be recognised that the differences between the two draft reports in this case were not fundamental.
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