AT WESTMINSTER
MR. CHURCHILL is attending the House of Commons more frequently than he did in the last Parliament, and the days are lighter and livelier in consequence. That follows as the night the day. Infallibly, you can expect the unexpected with him. On one day he administers a great shock to his own followers by proposing an inquiry into electoral reform. On another—Thursday to be exact—he startles the Government and its supporters. He is seen to be metaphorically on his knees to Mr. Herbert Morrison, though there was certainly a wisp of an ironic smile lurking about the corners of the suppliant's mouth. And what is he up to ? . Mr. Raymond Blackburn and a group of his Labour colleagues had tabled a motion denouncing the Opposition for " irresponsible and partisan " conduct in not telling the Government beforehand when it was going to divide against it. Mr. Churchill was simply imploring Mr. Morrison not to stand in the way of " the boys " ; to let them have their fling and move their vote of censure. Mr. Morrison was taken off his guard. A leader of• the Opposition longing to be censured is something very rare in his experience, or for that matter in anybody else's. But Mr. Morrison is never off his guard long. He promptly and genially sat on the suggestion. Wiser than the Blackburns, he; knew that no good could come to the Government out of a debate on such a motion, but that, on the contrary, it might do it much harm, since it could be represented as an attempt to hamstring the Opposition. Mr. Churchill submitted to Mr. Morrison's refusal with a broad smile. He had enlivened another Thursday.
* * * * Besides, Mr. Morrison was no doubt sensible that it would be impossible to establish that the divisions up-to-date have been irresponsible. Nevertheless, this idea of serving notice of divisions has been getting an airing in the wings at Westminster, having been taken up, among others, by the Liberals. It has also received ironical treatment by Conservative speakers on the floor of the House. One example will serve. " I give the Government notice we shall do nothing tonight that the Government does not expect." Thus Mr. Osbert Peake on Monday on the harrowing subject of greeting-cards. And the Treasury bench marvelled at his saying, being neither enlightened nor comforted.
* * * *
Always we come back to Mr. Churchill. He was quite himself in the debate on the. Burma loan on Tuesday. It had been announced some days before that he would speak in it. When Mr. Younger, the boyish-looking Minister of State, was on his feet explaining the loan, the news was circulated that Mr. Churchill would not speak. With his final decision not to speak, that was assumed to be the end of Mr. Churchill so far as this debate was concerned. But not on your life. Unsettled, and roaming in and out of the House, he encountered, on one visit to the Chamber, Mr. Woodrow Wyatt on his feet. The self-assured Member for Aston (he was private secretary to Sir Stafford Cripps on his !946 mission to India) engaged in as flagrant a piece of coat-trailing in front of Mr. Churchill as ever was seen. He recalled Mr. Churchill's remark when the grant of Burma's independence was announced, that the British Empire was being run off as fast as the American loan. Mr. Wyatt, in that, was as gratuitous as he was provocative.i It was far too much for Mr. Churchill. Mr. Wyatt had succeeded in his purpose. Mr. Churchill was drawn. He was even betrayed into repeating that old assertion of his that the Government iik responsible for the shedding of more blood in India in the last five years than was shed by Great Britain and her armies in the war. That was a pity. Mr. Wyatt, happy as an angler who has landed the salmon of the season, answered that but for the granting of freedom to India things would have been much worse.
* * * * The loan went through unchallenged, but from Mr. Butler downward the Opposition speakers doubted whether this was not throwing good money after bad. Mr. Butler made the new suggestion that there should be a Commonwealth administrator of
the loan on the analogy of E.C.A H. B.
Previous page
