The Minister of Labour moved the second reading of the
Bill based on the money resolution already passed raising the power of the Unemployed Fund to borrow up to £115 millions. She pleaded poverty and necessity. The Opposition made much of the hopelessness of this borrowing and the lack of any remedy for its cause, but their amendment was rejected by a majority of 60 votes. On Monday there was a special debate on disarmament, in which the speeches were addressed as much to other nations as to the House. The Prime Minister spoke to a sympathetic House, for he evidently felt that the Government have reached, if they have not passed, the limits of safety in disarmament at home. -They have decided to stop setting examples which are not fol- lowed, and Mr. MacDonald let it be clearly seen 'that the others must now do their share or the Conference at Geneva will be a failure next year. He gave many figures of men and money. On account of different rates of pay and for other reasons, he was sometimes comparing the incomparable, but all his figures tend to prove that we have taken the duty laid upon all by the Peace Treaty much more seriously than others have.
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