17 NOVEMBER 1928, Page 2

The debate was concluded on Monday. Mr. Boothby asked' for

a larger expenditure on telephones and on the supply of electricity, and suggested the stabilization of the value of gold whereby the mean between inflation and deflation could be observed. Sir Laming Worthington-Evans said that a week before the General Strike in 1926 the number of unemployed was nine hundred and eighty-one thousand. Five weeks later it was one million six hundred thousand. In spite of everything, real wages had risen in three years by £110,000,000—an increase which was chiefly attributable to the return to the gold standard. In the division the Labour amendment was defeated by three hundred and twenty-one votes to one hundred and fifty-one.

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