The actual debate itself produced only a general de- claration
of goodwill on the part of the Government towards the Reichstag pronouncement. It was obvious. that the Cabinet had not had time to give the necessary study to the proposals to enable them to give a specific reply to the detailed points. There was also the feeling that no definite declaration ought to be made until the French had been consulted. In the circumstances' Mr. Baldwin made an admirable response, frank and cordial and passionately sincere. His peroration on the problem that now confronted statesmanship " two thousand years after the birth of Christ", of providing the means by which in an air raid the mangled bodies of children could be taken to hospital with the utmost possible speed, was as fine as anything even he has done- in this Parliament. The long fight within the Labour Party on their attitude to the new increases in the air forces ended rather surprisingly with Major Attlee's declaration that his Party would move a reduction in the. vote. In the present temper of the country it is a decision that may cost them dear at the next election.
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