Sir Laming Worthington-Evans pointed out that the Government were now
urging the importance of transfer- ence which they had previously condemned. The Chair- man of th?. Unemployment Grants Committee himself had declared that the Committee had exhausted the greater part of its utility in 1926. Sir Laming, however, was quite friendly to the Government, and made it plain that Unionist support would be offered to every genuine attempt to reduce unemployment. Sir Herbert Samuel gave the interesting advice to the Government that they should not resign unless defeated on a grand issue. The whole House, in his opinion, ought to act on the suggestion of the Committee on National Expenditure of 1918 and vote freely on particular points without involving the Government in disaster. Members would thus have restored to them a sense that they were really legislators, and he thought that the quality and responsibility of the debates would be improved and that the present Parlia- ment could last for a reasonably long time. We quite agree. There is now an opportunity for all parties to go to school again in politics. A most interesting and valu- able experience lies ahead if it can be rightly used. Not too much importance should be attached to the weekly variations in the figures of unemployment, but those published in the papers of Wednesday unhappily feconlcd an increase of 24,598 over the previous week.
