AT WESTMINSTER
ARLIAMENT has been busy this week getting the tickets, so to speak, for the Queen's Commonwealth tour, and as far as the two Houses are concerned the journey may now start. The Lords gave the Regency Bill a second reading in a very few minutes on Tuesday—time enough for them to dissent from Mr. Gordon Walker's view that when the Sovereign is abroad she should be represented in this country by a Governor-General. The remaining stages 'of the Bill are taken formally on Thursday afternoon, with shortly afterwards a Royal Commission's announcement of the Royal Assent to the Bill—the first Act of the session. It remained for each House to wish the Queen and the Duke well on their jour- ney. This was its pleasant duty on Thursday. The Government must be relieved that the Regency Bill has gone through with so little bother after the fuss which occurred when it was first mentioned in the previous session.
* * * * On the whole, the Government has got its national service plans through with remarkably little fuss, too. Sir Winston Churchill rather implied when the matter was being debated in the House of Commons on Monday that it would help him at Bermuda if he could boast of British unity on defence policy. The Opposition has gone as far as it could to help, and indeed the prevailing attitude to national service in this country is astonishing when one bears in mind, as Sir Winston invited the House to do, that he himself in his political youth had spoken of conscription as " the foul tyranny." There are of course many criticisms of national service. Labour proposed on. Monday that while national service should continue in present circumstances, the period of service should be reviewed annually and be submitted for Parliament's approval. Mr. Clement Davies supported this proposal for the Liberals. A handful of Labour Members abstained from voting with the Opposition because they could not swallow the endorsement of national service, but 261 votes were collected for the motion against the Government's 304—a total of 565 in favour of the continuance of national service. That shoUld be good enough for Bermuda. * * * * The real opposition to national servici developed on Tuesday when the House was asked to approve an' order extending national service for five years. Labour's official line was to abstain from voting. (The Liberals abstained, too.) But forty Labour Members opposed the order either because they were pacifists, like Mr. James Hudson, or federalists, like Mr. Henry Usborne, or because experience of service life had• been ugly, as in the case of Mr. McGovern. The order was carried by a majority of 250 and the House then gave a second reading to the Reservists' Bill without a division. The Lords approved the order on Thursday.
* * * * The most curious feature of the debates on national service was the dolefulness of Mr. Head, the Secretary of State for War. He seemed to be obsessed by the unpopularity of national service—pekhaps because his soldiering was done as a Regular. Yet he need not have been quite so gloomy. The latest return from the Ministry of Defence states that 57,200 national servicemen have volunteered for a greater reserve liability than they need have undertaken. The total is surprising: it is the equivalent of nearly four infantry divisions.
* * * * Private Members in both Houses have gallantly started to legislate this week on matters which the Government would have taken up if it had been less busy. Lord Templewood, who has written a book to explain how a passion for bird- watching grew out of a passion for shooting, got a second reading on Tuesday for his Protection of Birds Bill; and on Wednesday Mr. Arthur Moyle, with all-party backing, intro- duced a Bill to apply the recommendatiOns of the Northumber- land Committee on• the slaughter of horses. J. F. B.
Previous page
