5 JULY 1957, Page 19

WHEN LORD BEAVERBROOK found himself in an embarrassing parliamentary situation

during the First World War Tim Healy undertook to rescue him : and did, with the help of some Irish knock- about comedy which side-tracked the debate, so that the original issue was quickly forgotten. I hope the same fate will not befall the debate on the future of the Lane Pictures, about which a question was asked this week in the Commons by Mr. Hector Hughes, the Irish member for Aber- deen North. Mr. Hughes is one of the last of the stage Irishmen : and he vastly entertained the House Cloud laughter') by a dispute with the Speaker whether 'unscrupulous' and 'dishonest' are terms of abuse or of fact. In the course of the argument the original question, on the injustice of withholding the Lane Bequest from its rightful owners—the Irish—was forgotten. The subject will not, I hope, be allowed to drop : but perhaps when it is brought up again it will be by some MP who is taken seriously at Westminster.