• Certainly the operation of the new scales did not
justify Mr. Lansbury's typically irresponsible statement that " the victims of a brutal economic system " were living " under conditions worse than you would afford to a horse that you wanted to keep in condition." The debate afforded however at least one useful purpose. It was a complete answer to the critics who asserted that the Unemployment Bill would take Relief out of the effective purview of Parliament. It proved that Parlia- ment is still instantly responsive to the grievances of the unemployed. Mr. Oliver Stanley, who behaved through- out a very trying debate with exemplary patience and good humour, has stated that immediate steps are being taken to deal with legitimate hardships, and announced that fresh instructions were being sent out by the Unem- ployment Assistance Board to their officers, and that if these did not meet the situation, the Board would not hesitate to come to Parliament to ask for alterations in the regulations.
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