6 NOVEMBER 1936, Page 3

The Week in Parliament - - Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes

:—The King's speech has given general satisfaction in the ranks of the Government supporters. There is no spectacular legislation, but what is offered is regarded as a series of very useful measures, eminently suitable, by reason of their largely uncontroversial nature, for being intro- duced in the Coronation year. It left Mr. Attlee, who lead the Opposition attack on Tuesday, with very little material for substantial criticism. Ile had to fall back on the old Socialist Party claptrap about the impossi- bility- of reforming society as long as what he called " the outworn system of private property " is maintained. There is something curiously foolish in the idea of an Opposition arraigning a Conservative Prime Minister because he has not introduced the Social Revolution into the King's Speech, particularly as everyone, including the Opposition, knows that if the Socialists were in power they would not • do so either. Indeed the absurdity of the Labour Party's present propaganda against capitalism is that if the electors really imagined that the Labour Party meant what they said about the necessity of destroying " the outworn system of private property " their numbers would not much exceed the strength of Mr. Maxton's following. The speech certainly did nothing to arouse the spirits of his Party, disheartened as they were by the results of the Municipal polls.

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