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gave a somewhat evasive reply, and on February 17 a Unionist member formally moved that the surplus of the Road Fund should not be diverted from its original purpose. If the roads, he said, were perfect, the petrol tax should be reduced. He was supported by Labour members, who thought that the money should be used for employing the unemployed on the roads. Mr. Churchill, in reply, deprecated the taking of a vote by the House on the strength of newspaper reports of the Government's intentions, and he asked them to wait for his Budget statement. The matter thereupon lapsed.

The Government had no difficulty, on February 16, in securing a Supplementary Estimate of 303,000l. for the Ministry of 'Agriculture. This was equivalent to an endorsement of the agricultural policy which it had set forth in a White Paper issued on February 2. According to this document, there was a wide measure of agreement that a national agricultural policy should aim at securing two objects-that the land should yield its maximum of food to the nation, and that it should furnish a reasonable livelihood to the maximum number of people. Unlike the Liberal and Labour Parties, however, the Government did not contemplate any radical changes with a view to securing these objects, but suggested only a few improvements in detail in existing conditions. It was against subsidies, save as a purely temporary expedient, or to start a new industry like beet-sugar. It promised to draw up a scheme for short-term credit, and undertook to maintain the Agricultural Wages Regulation Act, and referred sympathetically to small holdings, forestry, and research. The only definite measures to which it pledged itself were the provision of 1,000,000l. for drainage spread over five years, and a Merchandise Marks Bill, for the marking of imported agricultural produce. A cash-on-delivery system for postal packages was mentioned as being under consideration, and was actually brought into operation by the Post Office on March 29.

A Vote for an increase in the Customs staff (February 17) gave a number of members an opportunity of ventilating their grievances against the silk duties, the collection of which had caused enormous inconvenience to travellers and traders, owing to the great number of imported articles which contained silk in minute quantities and the determination of the Customs officials to let nothing escape toll. Mr. McNeill explained that things were becoming better, it being now the practice to divide silk-containing articles into large categories, and to levy a flat rate on each; the public also was becoming better acquainted with the Customs procedure, and finding it more tolerable.

Strong opposition was offered by the Labour Party to Mr. Churchill's motion on February 22 for confirming an agreement to pay 650,000l. in the current year, and 875,000l. in four subsequent years in aid of the Northern Ireland Unemployment

Insurance Fund. The Chancellor pointed out that, owing to the prevalence of unemployment in Ulster's staple industries, linen and shipbuilding, this sum was considerably less than the British. taxpayer would have had to find had the Ulster fund remained amalgamated with the general British fund. Mr. Snowden, who characterised the Constabulary grant of the previous year as a camouflaged unemployment grant, asked whether the Government had any more presents up its sleeve for Ulster, and moved that the sums proposed should be furnished as a loan and not as a gift. Mr. Churchill denied that the Government was contemplating any further gifts to Ulster, and pointed out that there was little hope of recovering money from a body already so heavily in debt as the Ulster Unemployment Fund; and the motion was eventually passed in its original form by a substantial majority.

The decision of the Government to restrict its grants in aid of unemployment relief works was, as anticipated, soon found to press hardly on the local authorities, and efforts were made by them to procure its reversal. On February 19, deputations representative of the Association of Municipal Corporations in England and Wales and of the larger local authorities in Scotland waited on the Prime Minister to urge the withdrawal of the circular letter issued by the Unemployment Grants Committee, under date of December 15, modifying the conditions under which grants could be sanctioned, and called his attention to the burden thrown upon the local authorities by the heavy unemployment. The Prime Minister, in reply, explained the general reasons which had made it necessary to issue the circular of December 15, and emphasised the importance, from the point of view of the absorption of the unemployed, of utilising for the ordinary requirements and development of industry as much as possible of the limited amount of capital available in the country. He made it plain that the circular of December 15 could not be withdrawn, but at the same time undertook to see what could be done for the furtherance of schemes that had been prepared in response to the circular issued by the Unemployment Grants Committee in March, 1925. The policy of the circular was strongly criticised by the Opposition in one of the debates on the Supplementary Estimates a few days later, but received the approval of the majority.

An interesting debate took place on February 12 on a private member's Bill to rescind the Act which required a member of Parliament to seek re-election if appointed to a Ministerial post nine months or more after a General Election. Mr. Clayton, the mover, recommended this step on the ground that it would enable the Prime Minister to choose colleagues on their merits and not on their majorities, and that new Ministers would be spared a great deal of expense and loss of time and constituencies a great deal of inconvenience. A further argument adduced in favour of the Bill was that under most of the Dominion Constitutions Ministers

were entirely exempt from the necessity of re-election. The chief argument adduced against the Bill was that it would lessen the authority of the House and the electorate; if a Minister resigned on a difference with his colleagues, a by-election was at present a valuable referendum on a single issue. The Prime Minister, while leaving the decision to the free vote of the House, stated that he personally would support the Bill. The application of the present Act, he said, was partial, and the quinquennial Act lessened the need for interim appeals. The head of the Government could, of course, avoid an election by a Cabinet reshuffle; but he might have to pass over men who held doubtful seats, although the very fact that they had won them implied special ability. The second reading was passed by 143 votes to 74. Bill passed its final reading in the House of Commons on June 11, when it was officially supported by the Home Secretary, in spite of the objections of a number of Conservatives, who thought that a change affecting the Constitution should not be made without consulting the electorate.

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On February 16 a motion was adopted unanimously instructing the Government to confine its placing of contracts, save in exceptional circumstances, to firms on the King's National Roll. It was stated that in spite of several years' effort by special committees there were still 31,000 unemployed disabled Service men, and still a number of public authorities which had not joined the Roll. It was thought that this motion, which only made statutory the actual practice of all Governments since 1921, would materially assist the work of the King's Roll Committee, and it was pointed out that the action of the House in the previous year in throwing out a private Bill because the promoting company was not on the Roll had proved most salutary.

On February 18 the Colonial Secretary asked the House of Commons to approve the Treaty which had just been signed between Great Britain and Iraq. The terms of the Treaty, according to Mr. Amery, fulfilled the stipulations laid down by the League of Nations, and did not exceed or run counter to the general policy announced by the Prime Minister and accepted by the House. The British expenditure in Iraq, he pointed out, would be under 4,000,000l. in the ensuing year, and part of this would be spent on an Air Force unit which would have to be maintained in any case. Mr. MacDonald, in moving the rejection of the Treaty, was in the awkward position of having to criticise the Government for obeying a decision of the League of Nations. He tried to remove blame from the League on to the Government by asserting that the former would never have come to such a decision had not the British Government previously announced its willingness to accept it. Mr. MacDonald was severely taken to task by subsequent speakers on the Unionist side, especially

Sir A. Chamberlain, for undermining the authority of the League by casting aspersions on the character of the Council. Mr. Hilton Young, a Liberal who shortly afterwards joined the Conservatives, and who had been for a time financial adviser to the Iraq Government, warmly defended the extension of the mandate, asserting that there was being evolved in Iraq what he would suggest was the pattern example of the future British Empire in the East—an Empire based on confidence, affection, and honour. One or two of the Unionist members who had previously advocated British withdrawal from Mesopotamia confessed themselves to have been converted by recent events to support of the Government policy. Labour members again brought up the charge that the Government was out to secure the oil of Mosul, and, in order to dispose of it once for all, Sir A. Chamberlain informed the House that in March of the previous year the Turkish Government had proposed to him that Turkey should have as much as it desired of the vilayet of Mosul, and that a British company, approved by His Majesty's Government, should have the exploitation of all the oil. The Government, however, had replied that they were trustees and mandatories for Iraq, and could not bargain away the interests of that country for concessions. The motion for accepting the Treaty was eventually carried by 260 votes to 116.

On February 20 the Board of Trade issued as a White Paper the report presented to it by the Food Council on the subject of short weight and measure. The inquiries which the Council had been carrying on for some months previously had shown that the giving of short weight and measure was exceedingly prevalent in the sale of food-stuffs, and, as wilful fraud was difficult to prove, the public obtained little protection from the Weights and Measures Act. The Council, after consulting the traders in detail, found that there was agreement as to the necessity of further protection for the consumer and on the principle that the giving of short weight and measure should be made a penal offence, and it put forward certain proposals for remedying the evil to which it hoped that legislative effect would soon be given.

The Service Estimates were by this time ready, and on February 25 the House of Commons went into Committee of Supply on the Air Estimates. Prior to the debate the Prime Minister was asked whether the Government had any intention of uniting the three arms of the Service under a single direction. He replied that the Government intended to pursue the organisation of Imperial Defence on the existing basis, and that there was no question of doing away with a separate Air Arm and Air Ministry. They were convinced that the way to secure the higher co-ordination of their defence machinery, which was essential both for efficiency and economy, lay not in the abolition of any of the established arms of the Forces, but in combined action by all three through the machinery of the Committee of Imperial

Defence and the agency of the recently constituted Committee of Chiefs of Staff.

The Secretary of State for Air, Sir S. Hoare, in introducing the motion to go into Committee, gave a comprehensive survey of the position of military and civil aviation in the Empire. There was, he said, a reduction of 350,000l. on the cost of defence in Iraq and Palestine, the result partly of the flying visit paid by himself and the Secretary for the Colonies to the Near East in the previous spring, but still more of the efficiency of the Air Command and the Civil Administration in those parts. For the purposes of home defence they had now 25 squadrons, against 3 squadrons three years ago, and at the end of the financial year there would be 28. They were in the position of being the second greatest air power in the world, leaving out of account the air force of Russia, of which he had no official knowledge. Even so, they were in an inferiority of somewhat less than one to two as compared with their nearest neighbour. While the programme of home defence, accepted by Government after Government, remained intact, he had come to the conclusion that the Treaties of Locarno, and the new atmosphere of international concord which they created, justified them in proceeding more slowly with the completion of their programme than they would otherwise have done. The Air Staff and the Air Force did not altogether regret the slowing down, as it gave them a breathing space for more intensive training, which substantially added to the quality and the fighting strength of the force. Care had been taken that in spite of the slowing down, the aircraft industry, which depended wholly on Government orders, should not unduly suffer. Longdistance flights within the Empire were becoming a frequent feature of military aviation, and on the civil side they were hoping to make a definite start with the aeroplane route to India in the course of the year, while the two airships designed by the Government would probably be flying regularly between London and distant parts of the Empire before the present Parliament had run its course. Lastly, in order to develop an “air sense among the public at large, they had within the last year made the experiment of creating auxiliary and special reserve squadrons at various great industrial centres.

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The Government statement was received by the House in a very critical mood. The first speaker, a Labour member, Mr. Attlee, made the complaint that the Minister's speech "contained no echo of the Locarno spirit," and the sentiment was repeated in various forms by a large number of subsequent speakers, most of them from the Unionist benches. Genuine disappointment, in fact, was evinced by the House that the Government's statement held out no prospect of disarmament. On the question of the co-ordination of the Services, also, the Premier's statement did not give satisfaction, and from all sides the Government was

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