Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : Political interest during the
week has been centred outside the House of Commons. Inside it two contentious measures have been completed. The first—an Unemployment Insurance Bill which marks the inability of the Govern- ment to make up its mind how unemployment insurance and poor relief should be further reformed and related— owed its immunity to criticism chiefly to the tortuous inconsistencies of the Opposition, who are now attacking even such of the principles of insurance as they once supported. Mr. H. S. Hudson, however,' deserves credit for closing the Third Reading debate with some en- couraging figures effectively presented'. The real trouble, of course, centres upon who is to be responsible for distributing relief provided by the taxpayers. Local Authorities do not like doing it, and the socialistically inclined run foul of the Ministry of Labour. The Central Government does not like it because relief has always been a local matter, and the prospect of Ministerial responsibility for decisions in individual cases is not welcomed.
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