Parliament
• Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : Sir John Simon can always put up an attractive- argument when he is briefed with something to say, and the manner of his announcement of the embargo on the export of arms both to China and Japan lulled the House of Commons on Monday into an imperfect appreciation of its matter. The fairly favourable reception given to his speech was due more to an aside -that this country would in no circumstances be dragged into war—than to anything else.' But there was really no force whatever in his main contention that because the Lytton report was impartial in tone, British policy must and could be strictly impartial as between the combatants. The best speech of the debate came from Sir Austen Chamberlain, who clearly disliked the compromise which had chosen illogical action as being half way between no action and effective action. It is quite true that when the League has declared one party to be an aggressor and the other party to be the victim, effective aid to the victim can only be international, but that does not mean that national action ought to be of a kind that hurts the victim more than the aggressor.
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