AT WESTMINSTER
The House then passed to a debate raised by the Liberal Nationals on the Tourist and Holiday Industries. The President of the Board of Trade agreed that it was a valuable subject to have raised, and he made it clear that the Government did appreciate its immense importance, particularly as a "dollar-earner." He was followed by Mr. Orr-Ewing, whose constituency of Weston-super-Mare is much concerned with this question. Mr. Orr-Ewing gave a very clear analysis of the confused situation which has arisen from the operation of the Orders made under the Catering Wages Act. His view was that the approach to what is largely a domestic and personal enter- prise was one which was more appropriate to an industry, and he stressed the unsuitable composition and arduous procedure of the Wages Boards. Mr. Malcolm McCorquodale, who as war-time Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour had helped to pilot the Catering Wages Act through the Commons, took a similar line. Mr. Ness Edwards, who replied, wanted to leave the Boards to their own devices, and thought Parliamentary debate would do harm. The debate then widened into a discussion of various factors,' such as food and petrol, which affect this country's attractiveness to tourists. As such it became so wide as to lose direction, and it ended somewhat inconclusively.
* * * * Wednesday began with the first appearance of the Mountbatten Bill in the Commons after its successful passage through the Lords. Being a Private Bill, it was called in the usual way immediately after Prayers to see if it could obtain its Second Reading unopposed. Loud shouts of " Object " indicated that it would not, and it will have to try again. At question time the Foreign Secretary, who seemed none the worse for some weeks of M. Vyshinsky's company, was under fire from the newly formed Independent Labour Group. Under the leadership of Mr. Pritt this new " party," qualification for membership of which appears to be expulsion from the Labour Party, has apparently established itself on the back bench below the gangway on the Government side. It will not be its fault if much more is not heard of it.
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The House then started on the great annual marathon of the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill. With a little ingenuity almost any aspect of our national finances can be raised on one or other of its clauses. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's recent attitude has been so unconciliatory that the prophets were saying that late sittings would be needed to get it through. One agreeable touch was an attempt to lower the duty on mead. This takes one back to the Witan, in which no doubt this issue raised high feelings.
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Returning Members noticed the gallant efforts now being made to improve the lighting of our gloomy palace. One experimental group of lights has been placed over the entrance to the Aye division lobby. Its powerful beams appeared on Monday night to floodlight a group of Opposition Whips. The effect was quite
WHEN the House reassembled on Tuesday, after the longest and finest Whitsun Recess in living memory, many familiar faces bore an unfamiliar tan. But the " breezes " of Blackpool and elsewhere had not produced any exhilaration of spirit, and the House resumed in quiet mood. At question time Mr. Shinwell was asked about the cancellation on his visit to Edinburgh of the salute of guns to which a Secretary of State for War is entitled. After he had replied to the effect that these salutes had been dropped for 4o years, Mr. Quintin Hogg asked him if the appropriate salute for *him was not " Two Hoots." Mr. Blackburn's patent solicitude for the feelings of Ministers, in marked contrast to his earlier attitude, more than once elicited from the Opposition the interjection " Homeward Bound." In the course of a number of Government statements the Lord President of the Council announced that Lord Beveridge would preside over the Committee of Inquiry into Broad. casting. The silence on one side of the House and the noise on the other combined to indicate rather modified enthusiasm.
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