The Week in Parliament
ON Tuesday in the House of Commons began a session probably the most important since that which committed this country to the Great European War of 1914. Yet somehow the occasion lacked impressiveness. It was strange—but the strangeness soon wore off—to see " everyone on the wrong side," but things began in a trivial way. After three questions by private notice, with " supplementaries " of the old " scoring " kind, the Chairman read letters of resignation from the Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Robert Young) and the Deputy Chairman (Mr. Dunnico). More questions as to " outside bodies," and the Opposition shouted, " Bankers."
And then Mr. Arthur Henderson, now leader of the Opposition, asked the Prime Minister as to the course of business during the week, and there was wrangling as to what each said the other had said, with interruption from both sides of the House. And then, after the Speaker had explained that, because the circumstances were so exceptional, he would allow a fuller and wider debate than was usual in a motion for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of Ways and Means, the Prime Minister rose to make his statement. That he had come through a heavy strain was evident and it showed itself in a rather feverish appearance and at times a mechanically fixed smile..
The Prime Minister's statement, after a history of the crisis, really resolved itself into a repetition of this question to the Opposition : " What would you have done on the evening of August 23rd ? " He naturally got the reply : " It , was the Government's duty to remain in office until the pound was unassailable." Mr. Arthur Henderson, who followed, recalled his twenty-eight years of all but daily association with the Prime Minister. " Whether the withdrawal of our colleagues be long or short, whether it be 'temporary or permanent, it is a direct loss to the Labour movement."
It was not the policy of the late Government which had created the financial breakdown, but the spendthrift tendencies of previous Governments. The Prime Minister had spoken of sacrifices. Well, he, Henderson, had given up office, emoluments, work dear to his heart, and the Prime Minister had kept office and its emoluments.
Mr. Churchill spoke from Mr. Maxton's old seat. He blamed alike the old Government, the new Government, and the present Opposition ; only decisive defeat at a general election could restore confidence ; delay gave the Socialists a better chance of escaping defeat. Con- servative victory coupled with tariffs were the only things which would restore prosperity. Mr. Maxton followed. The proposed economies would not do more than postpone the crisis a very feW weeks, and then would come a breakdown of the 'whole system. Then only would the nation realize that a planned and ordered system had to be devised: Mr. Baldwin's speech, in curious contrast with the Prime Minister's, was listened to practically without an interruption. Its tone—sober, reserved, " English "- came nearest to creating an atmosphere appropriate to a great deliberate assembly dealing with one of the greatest of national crises. This tone, this atmosphere. was its real contribution. There was no invective, no taunts. He did not even appeal to the Opposition for support ; he only asked that in presenting their case they should remember' that if the world came to believe that a large section of the community in Great Britain did not realize the gravity of the position or was reluctant to face the conditions, that fact of itself might prolong, most dangerously, the period of instability. Sir Oswald Mosley was fluent and challenging, but laboured under the difficulty of disagreeing with everybody except his two followers.
The debate was wound up for the Opposition by Mr., Alexander in quite the best speech of the Opposition, though it traversed familiar ground. When Sir Herbert Samuel replied for the Government he asked Mr. Henderson (who had said that an Opposition's duty was to oppose) what would have happened to the Socialist Party during the last two years if the Liberal Party, sitting in Opposition, had always acted on that very disputable adage.
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