AT WESTMINSTER
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The storms have been a terrible theme and their impact upon the House of Commons has been direct. Sir Walter Smiles, the Member for North Down, was drowned when the `Princess Victoria' sank off Larne at the week-end. The Speaker's report of his death was the first business of the House on Monday. But though the flooding has been a national disaster it has not diverted for one moment the atten- tion of those Members who are fascinated by what they believe to be the iniquities of the new Republican Administration in the United States, and Formosa has been the second great issue before the House this week. Mr. Desmond Donnelly, the Labour Member for Pembroke, tried unsuccessfully to secure the adjournment of the House on Monday to discuss American policy towards Formosa. Mr. Eden made his short, but care- ful, statement on Tuesday, and the business of the House was rearranged to permit a debate on Far Eastern affairs to be held on Thursday. * * * * Neither the flood damage nor Formosa was part of the programme arranged for the House of Commons this week. The programme has indeed shrivelled day by day. On Mon- day, the Opposition's attack on the Government's agricultural policy gave Ministers a majority of fifty-five—scarcely a triumphant outcome of an Opposition motion of censure. Mr. George Brown, who wound up for Labour, tried to shout a little life into the debate, but was trapped by a Tory into describing the nationalisation of the land as " a sloppy, silly slogan." lvfr. Bevan was not on the Front Bench at the moment to hear these sacrilegious words. Nor was Sir Thomas Dugdale quite master of the debate. With three minutes of his speech to run, he turned to long-term policy.
* * * * Equally, the debate on the Commonwealth economic con- ference had lost some of its virtue before it opened on Tuesday.
The House cannot itself on floods and Formosa and still be brimful of energy for an economic debate. Mr. Butler, Mr. Gaitskell, Mr. Harold Wilson and Mr. Eden all lacked the strength between them to raise the debate to the level it should have occupied. The one refreshment was the spectacle of Mr. Wilson sitting once again on Labour's Front Bench next to Mr. Gaitskell in apparent amity, but few Labour Members were in the House to enjoy this demonstration of unity. * * * * Parliamentary reform has had to fight for a place in the minds of Members of Parliament. The House of Lords, with notable single-mindedness, gave Tuesday and Wednesday to a debate on the reform of the House of Lords, but the Government's invi- tation to the other part:es to join in a new conference on reform will have to be answered by the Commons. The Liberals, meanwhile, are concentrating on electoral reform. Mr. Churchill gave them over an hour of his time on Tuesday, and though he said an electoral Bill was impossible in this Parlia- ment he promised to consider the case for a fact-finding enquiry. J. F. B.
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