Mr. Burgin has not had it all his own way
in the Ministry of Supply Debates. Mr. Mander was, perhaps, unwise to try to refuse the Minister a Parliamentary Secretary, for the general feeling in the House is that the more that Mr. Burgin is strengthened the better. The real battle was fought over whether the powers should be mandatory or permissive. The present Bill, as Sir Arthur Salter and others pointed out, is no more than a Ministry of Army Supplies Enabling Bill ; but Mr. Oliver Simmonds drew a red herring when he suggested that the Socialist amendment was proposing to give powers to the Minister which would, in effect, Nazify labour. Later, Mr. Burgin drove into the Lobby a number of the Government's most faithful followers on the question of arbitration. It is becoming a regular practice, and the House does not like it, for Ministers to assume the position of judges in their own cause. Mr. Burgin was adamant that arbitrators should be appointed by himself. The Con- servatives who wanted at any rate some of the arbitrators to be appointed by the interests concerned remained un- satisfied even when Mr. Burgin made the offer that the arbitrators in any specific case should be chosen by an elected chairman of the whole paneL
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