The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : Debates
in the House of Commons are improving in quality. After the old-style dog-fight on the Report of the Committee of Privileges there came last Tuesday a really brilliant discussion on the Bill to encourage the search for oil in the British Isles. The Government, the Labour Party and the Liberal Party all took the measure to mean that if oil were found, its development should not proceed haphazard as had the development of coal mining. The Labour Party seemed to think in addition that it meant that the Crown, which is to be the royalty owner. might conduct the search and own the wells, but Mr. Runeiman made it plain enough that the Bill was intended to facilitate the search for oil by the large oil companies. This led Lord Haitington, who has actually. found oil on his property, to suspect some surrender by the Government to oil trusts ; and he said so in the kind of knowledgeable speech which the House loves. Sir Arnold Wilson, with the great authority of an oil expert, contradicted most of his statements and all his conclusions ; and Lord Eustace Percy developed with great effect the argument that a halfpennyworth of the tar of defending indefensible claims for private property might spoil the whole ship in which the principle of private property had safely voyaged for generations. In the end the division once again separated the Diehards from the rest of the House, and the minority numbered only 29.
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