AT WESTMINSTER
pARLIAMENT is scraping the legislative barrel. If it is not, disparaging to some useful little Bills one would say it is down to the lees of the session's legislation. Had you entered the Commons on Monday, for example, you would have found one Member on his feet earnestly addressing half a dozen equally earnest Members on the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Burma) Order, and you could have settled down to wring what joy you could out of that. And there has been quite a lot of the same succulent fare. In other words, this session has shot its bolt. The dying-embers (if one can be permitted some licence in metaphors) may burst into flame once or twice before they are finally extinguished on August 3rd. There is to be a debate on Persia and another . on that exciting subject, the B.B.C. But in the main it promises to be pretty tedious to the end., * * * * When Mr. Churchill asked for a debate on Persia he said the situation there was " bewilderingly fluid." Those words are eloquent of the caution with which he has approached the Persian crisis from the beginning. There were so many other things he might have said about it. So far he has pronounced no judgement on the Government's handling of the situation or on the• question of evacuation. It was Mr. Eden who said evacuation would be disastrous and that it would be an abject surrender. That was in the debate on June 21st. It was Lord Salisbury who, in the House of Lords last Thursday, urged the Government to declare itself opposed to evacuation and prepared to take steps to prevent it if needed. But on Monday Mr. Churchill was still non-committal and talking cautiously about the situation being bewilderingly fluid. This contrast in the parts played by Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden and Lord Salisbury is too marked to be ignored, and it naturally prompts the question : Is Mr. Churchill at odds with his colleagues ? Are they in the last resort prepared for military intervention while he is not ? .• * * * * The coming debate may provide an answer. It is possible Mr. Churchill is waiting to see if and how the situation crystallizes before finally committing himself. Prudence may be at work for another reason. As anyone can see who has followed affairs in the House of Commons in these last few weeks there are members of the Labour Party looking for the slightest pretext to represent Mr. Churchill as a warmonger and his party as a war party. It would not be a compliment to the intelligence of the electors, but -it could be a dangerous election-cry for the Opposition. Incidentally, the belief is stronger than ever that Mr. Attlee will go to the country in the autumn. And yet there is nothing positive to warrant this growing conviction. It is simply that the politicians of all parties are agreed that Mr. Attlee cannot afford to delay the appeal to the country ; that an October election is his last, best, chance.
* * * * Mr. Morrison's announcement that the state of war with Geimany is at an end produced about as much, effect on the House as if he had announced an amendment of the Food and Drugs Act. The House might instantly have passed to the next business had it not been for Mr. Churchill. He could see the event with the eye of imagination, while deploring the six years' delay. He redeemed the moment by taking it upon himself to express the hope on behalf of Government and Opposition that Germany and ,Great Britain could now tread together the path of peace under the United Nations. And he did it with a slight access of emotion. It is well there is someone in the House who can see beyond his nose and the day's Order Paper. * * * * Mr. Gordon-Walker's account of the seizure of Rabazule and twenty other supporters of Tshekedi and the attempt, though frustrated, to expel them from the Bamangwato reserve, has intensified all the original misgivings about the coming Ktogla.
H. Et.
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