Not surprisingly, attendance in the House, except at question time,
has been very meagre. Mr. Oliver Stanley showed to his best advantage when he introduced, on Monday, the Cotton Industry Reorganisation Bill. All the Lancashire Members seemed to want to speak, and a great many did. There had, of course, been much discussion on the proposals before the Parliamentary stage was reached ; and, although there were one or two Members from the Government side who damned with the faintest of praises, there was no real opposition to the Bill. It looks like having a long Committee stage, however. Naturally, one or two of the Labour speakers could not refrain from pointing out the close relationship between this Bill and some of the Socialist proposals. Sir Percy Harris put in a good word for the Liberals and Free Trade. Mr. Clynes, who is heard seldom now, could have made his speech from either side of the Table. There was a good deal, perhaps, in the suggestion from Mr. Barnes that Conservative Members were poachers turned gamekeepers, and that it does not take them long, when the need arises, to throw over the mumbo-jumbo and shibboleths of economic law. Whether this was a charge or a compliment he left for the House to decide, but, with Herr Funk in the background, Mr. Oliver Stanley may well have regarded it as the latter.
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