The Week in Parliament
T' great debate upon unemployment last week was very damaging to the Government. So bad, indeed, was the speech of the Prime Minister, that it embarrassed members of the Opposition ahnost as much as those who sat in sullen gloom behind him. Challenged by Mr. Lloyd George to explain some of the figures which he was laboriously reading out, Mr. MacDonald proved quite unable to do so, and ended by pleading with the House to forgive his ignorance of the whole subject, and asinring his party that he now proposed to devote atten- tion to it. One year too late. Nobody has ever accused the Prime Minister of indolence. As Mr. Churchill subse- quently observed; he exhausts himself in the public service. What is almost incredible, at least to the younger generation in politics, is that he should have regarded the -Naval Conference as of greater importance than the problems of industry and unemployment in this country at the supreme crisis Of her economic fate. When Mr. MacDonald resumed his seat, uncheered, Sir Robert Home asked Mr. Snowden to substantiate or withdraw the figures that he had previously quoted in debate relating to the finances of certain iron and steel companies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was obliged to adopt the second alternative, and the stage was then nicely set for Sir Oswald Mosley's assault upon Age in general and this administration in particular. • - He achieved a spectacular Parliamentary triumph. Whatever views may be held about the intrinsic merits of the schemes which he adumbrated, the manner of his speech, the industry which had gone to build it up, and the sincerity which clearly informed it, commanded universal admiration. Sir Oswald spoke without notes for an hour and a quarter. He gripped the attention of a packed House from the first word to the last. Cogent, lucid, restrained throughout. Towards the end he became visibly exhausted, and the pallor of his face in combina- tion with a break in the voice, and an absence of any attempt at rhetorical flourish, produced an extraordi- narily effective climax.
The applause which greeted him at the conclusion of a really remarkable effort was spontaneous, general, and prolonged.
Only the occupants of the two front benches appeared to be morose and preoccupied, and occasionally exchanged dubious glances. They have been before the footlights for such a long time. And they still feel full of life and go. True that under their auspices Great Britain has been reduced to sorry plight—but that, after all, is due to "world causes," comforting phrase.
Nevertheless, here was something suspiciously like a new star. For a horrible moment the disconcerting reflection seemed to seize the collective front bench mind that this speech might be a portent, might even fore- shadow the final cataclysm involved by their own departure from the seats of the mighty. But only for a moment. They soon remembered that youth is notoriously impatient, and that the British public is faithful to its old favourites. Thinking of Harry Lauder and Marie Lloyd, the countenances on the front benches brightened. And when Mr. Lloyd George started trying to do an electoral deal across the box with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, they felt quite themselves again.
The debate on the second reading of the Education Bill passed off without incident. Sir Charles Trevelyan made a good impression, and Mr. John Buchan spoke in favour of the measure with his usual competence and courage.
Mr. Churchill deployed his case against the Naval Treaty with great force on Monday, but on this issue he carries only a bare majority of the Unionist party, and, although he was listened to with interest and attention, the feeling of the House was overwhelmingly behind the Government.
On Tuesday we returned to Finance. Four hours on motor vehicles left only twenty minutes for surtax, which seemed a disproportionate allotment of time by the Unionist Party. It is greatly to their credit that, having made, from their own point of view, a bad bargain with the Government Whips, the Opposition loyally carried it out both in letter and spirit.
WATCHMAN.
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