* * We must pass now to the debate in
the House of Commons on Tuesday, when the whole situation was reviewed. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald blamed the Govern- thent for " inaction " and Mr. Lloyd George followed on the same lines, perhaps forgetting (though Mr. Baldwin did not) that in 1921 when he was Prime Minister he waited upon circumstances just as Mr. Baldwin is waiting now. Mr. Baldwin pointed out that it was not true to say that the Government had rejected the Samuel memorandum which was produced during "the strike. The unfortunate fact was that the miners had refused it though the General Council of the T.U.C. had approved of it. That being so the Government obviously could not 'adopt it, but they embodied it in different words in their own proposal. Nor was it true to say that the Government had presented an ultimatum when fixing a time limit within which the subsidy of £8,000,000 inuSt be accepted. It had been most clearly explained to the miners that the Government's scheme was merely " a • basis for dis- cussion."
* *
