ground for years past for taking the step which it was now contemplating. In his Note of February 23 he had given the Russian Government warning that British patience was well-nigh exhausted. But the practices complained of had continued just the same. The Government therefore could no longer take the responsibility of maintaining diplomatic relations which were conducted in such a way as to be not an instrument of peace but a fresh and continued source of irritation and danger.

After the Foreign Secretary had spoken, Mr. Lloyd George, who could speak with some authority on the subject of diplomatic intercourse with Russia, made a strenuous effort to deflect the Government from its course. He declared himself unable to support the motion, because it did not unmistakably express reprobation of the continuous breaches by the Soviet Government of their honourable agreement with this country-breaches about which there could be no shadow of doubt. But he condemned in unsparing terms the action of the Government in forcing a rupture at the present juncture and on the strength of the very flimsy evidence produced by the raid. They had, he said, gained much from diplomatic relations; they could gain nothing from a rupture. He recalled the warning uttered by Lord Balfour in 1926, when it was proposed to take exactly the same step and on evidence just as convincing. He pointed out that one day they would want to resume relations with Russia, and he asked the Government if they had considered how it was going to be done. The Government, he said, had taken a leap in the dark, a leap into a whirlpool.

Mr. George's speech created a deep impression both in Parliament and outside, but his warning was not heeded by the Government or its supporters. At the close of the debate the Home Secretary drew a picture of Soviet headquarters in London as a dangerous nest of spies and agitators of which the country would be well rid; and this was the view which found favour with the majority. A Conservative amendment was moved applauding the decision of the Government to withdraw the diplomatic privileges enjoyed by the Russian agents, while at the same time putting no obstacles in the way of legitimate trading relations with Russia, and this was eventually carried by 357 votes to 111, and ordered to be entered as a resolution of the House.

The next day the Foreign Secretary despatched to the Soviet chargé d'affaires a Note stating that in view of the breaches of the Trade Agreement which had been committed since the Note of February 23, in particular of his own telegram of April, the Government had decided to cancel the Trade Agreement, to terminate the privileges conferred on M. Khinchuk and his assistants, and to suspend existing relations between Russia and Great Britain. They would, however, raise no objection to the continuance of the legitimate commercial activities of Arcos, and would allow a

reasonable number of the Russian employees of the company to remain in the country. M. Khinchuk and M. Rosengolsz, and their staffs, were given ten days in which to leave the country, and at the same time the British representatives were withdrawn from Moscow and Leningrad.

Before leaving England, M. Rosengolsz addressed to the Foreign Secretary a request that Soviet citizens who were directors of Arcos and other trading organisations in England should be allowed to remain, with their necessary staff, in order to liquidate their affairs. Permission was readily granted, and in consequence only about seventy Russian officials left out of a total of some 400. M. Rosengolsz and his entourage left England on June 3; among those who saw them off at the station was Mr. Henderson, as official representative of the Labour Party. A few days previously M. Rosengolsz and members of his party had been informally entertained at lunch at the House of Commons by a group of Labour members a fact which greatly scandalised certain Conservative members, and which was adversely commented on by Sir Herbert Samuel and other Liberals.

Lord Balfour was given an early opportunity of explaining his change of attitude in answer to a speech of Lord Parmoor criticising the action of the Government in the House of Lords (May 31). Lord Balfour justified the step, as Sir A. Chamberlain had done, on the ground that there was a limit to the Government's patience, and that that limit had at length been reached. He characterised the conduct of the Russians throughout their dealings with England as one of "deliberate and organised perfidy," which was intolerable in international relations. He thought there was no danger of the rupture of relations leading to war; the step had been taken at a time when, so far as they could judge, no international ill consequences were likely to follow, and when the state of Europe was better than when the Labour Party was in power.

The termination of the Anglo-Russian Trade Agreement did in fact produce no immediate repercussions in the political sphere, but it had a curious sequel in the trade union world. After the Arcos raid the Executive of the Russian trade unions became obsessed with the idea that England was engineering a war against Russia, and it sent repeated telegrams to the Council of the Trade Union Congress in England urging it to arrange a meeting of the Anglo-Russian Committee in Berlin in order to take steps for averting the danger of war from Russia. The Council, not regarding the danger of war as serious, for some time paid no attention to these requests, but at length yielded to the insistency of the Russians so far as to send Messrs. Hicks and Citrine to Berlin to meet the Russian representatives on June 18 and 19 and discuss the question of calling a meeting of the Anglo-Russian Committee. The British delegates showed themselves so unresponsive to the representations of the Russians that the latter came to the conclusion

that the Anglo-Russian Committee itself was not worth preserving, and announced their intention of dissolving it.

A Colonial Conference, attended by representatives of twentyfive colonies, protectorates, and mandated territories of the British Empire, was opened in London on May 10. The first act of the Conference was to send a message to the King assuring the King and Queen of the loyalty and devotion " of the many peoples and races throughout the world whom we represent." The Minister of the Colonies presided, and in his opening speech pointed out that the reason for holding the Conference was that there was a certain unity of problems in the Colonial Empire along with great diversity of administration and structure in its various parts. This diversity had its advantages, as it allowed of greater adaptability to local needs, but it also had its drawbacks, as the selfsufficiency of the various units fostered in them a narrow and unprogressive spirit. The danger was especially great with those aspects of administration into which scientific method and research entered-problems of agriculture, veterinary science, health, and transport. In all these matters closer co-operation and a more effective interchange both of information and ideas was needed. He did not think that the problem was to be solved by administrative reconstruction of the Colonial Empire as a whole, or, except in rare cases, by larger federal schemes, but rather by the development of the system of consultation by conference, for the furtherance of which he advocated the holding of such conferences every three years.

On May 16 M. Doumergue, the President of the French Republic, paid a State visit of three days to England, during which he was entertained by the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace. Greetings of the most cordial character were exchanged between the two rulers, and the London public gave an effusive welcome to the head of the French State. The President was accompanied by M. Briand, who did not fail to have a long discussion on political matters with Sir A. Chamberlain. The official report of the interview, though consisting of but three sentences, showed clearly that British foreign policy had once more entered on a new orientation, or, rather, returned to an old one. The two Foreign Ministers, it stated, "were able to recognise once again the solidity of the entente cordiale between France and Great Britain, and the necessity of strengthening that entente as being the surest foundation for the peace of Europe."

At the same time that the Foreign Office broke with Russia, it removed from the scene a potential source of friction with America. In 1926 Senator Borah had proposed that the British Government should be invited to pay compensation to those American citizens who had suffered losses from the blockade operations of the British Navy during the war. The United States Government brought the matter to the notice of the British Government,

which acknowledged the claims, but put forward counter-claims on account of certain services performed on behalf of American ships in 1914-17 which had not yet been paid for. Negotiations on the matter went on for a considerable time, until at last an agreement was signed at Washington on May 19 by which Britain waived her claims, and the United States in return undertook to make no further war claims whatever on Great Britain.

Close upon the heels of the breach with Russia came the danger of a rupture with Egypt. The War Committee of the Egyptian Parliament, in publishing its financial statement towards the end of May, recommended the cancellation of the budgetary credit for the Sirdarate. This was tantamount to an attempt to remove the control of the Egyptian army from the Sirdar, who was a British officer, to the Egyptian Minister of War. Lord Lloyd, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, called the attention of the British Government to the situation, and the Government immediately instructed him to deliver a Note to the Egyptian Government (May 30) insisting on the maintenance of the status quo, as fixed by the Agreement of February, 1922, until a more permanent agreement could be reached. At the same time three British warships were despatched to Egyptian waters "to exercise a restraining influence," as the Foreign Secretary subsequently said, on those who were trying to foment political excitement in Egypt. The steps taken by the British Government produced the desired result. Negotiations still went on for some little time, but at length the Egyptian Government presented to Lord Lloyd a Note which gave complete satisfaction to the British Government, and amicable relations between the two countries were restored. Shortly afterwards Anglo-Egyptian friendship was cemented by the visit to England of King Fuad, who was entertained by the King and given a very cordial reception by the public.

After a week's discussion of the Trade Union Bill in Committee, the Government found that progress was too slow for their requirements, and they decided to quicken matters by applying the so-called "guillotine " process, which had become such a by-word in the period of Liberal domination after 1906, but had now been in abeyance for over six years. On May 16 the Prime Minister introduced a motion allocating a fixed time for the discussion of each clause of the Bill. He pointed out that after devoting to the Bill three and a half days on the second reading, and about eighteen hours in Committee, they had disposed of six amendments and passed seven words. At that rate they would not have got through the first clause before the end of August or the middle of September, even if they took no other business, and the Government was anxious that they should finish with the Bill by the end of July. They proposed, therefore, to allow in all twenty-one days for the discussion of the Bill, which they thought was ample.

Mr. Clynes, on behalf of the Opposition, rejected the Premier's proposal with scorn. The Opposition, he said, was prepared to give any amount of time to discuss the details of the Bill fully and fairly; but there was no urgency for the Bill and no demand for it, and if it was necessary to save Parliamentary time, the best way to do so would be by withdrawing the Bill altogether. The amendments already proposed by the Government itself virtually constituted a new Bill, so that if ever the application of the guillotine was justified, this was not a time for it. The motion was a gross abuse of the power of numbers; it would reduce Parliamentary business to a mockery, and his followers would be no party to it.

On concluding his speech Mr. Clynes, in accordance with a decision taken shortly before the debate by the Executive of the Labour Party, walked out of the House, followed by all the occupants of the Labour benches. After their departure Mr. Lloyd George pleaded with the Prime Minister at least to allow more time for the discussion of clause 1 of the Bill, but Mr. Baldwin refused, and the motion was carried by 259 votes to 13.

The Labour Party overnight thought better of its decision, and, to the general surprise, on the next day (May 17) attended the House of Commons in full force for the continuation of the Committee stage of the Trade Union Bill, and treated the debate with the utmost seriousness. The subject discussed was the amended version put forward by the Government of the first sub-section of the first clause, dealing with the general strike. The Attorney-General explained that in re-drafting this and other sections, the Government was endeavouring to meet four criticisms that had been brought against the original version in the debate on the second reading-that lock-outs were not included, that the word "intimidate" and the phrase "substantial portion of the community" were ambiguous, and that it was difficult to define what was the same trade or industry. When the amendments introduced by the Government were carried, the Bill would make it clear that two conditions would have to be fulfilled before a strike could be illegal-first, that it must have an object other than, or in addition to, the furtherance of a trade dispute within the trade or industry; and, secondly, that it must be designed or calculated to coerce the Government, either directly or by inflicting hardships on the community.

Labour speakers did not deny that their objections in regard to the vagueness of the sub-section had been largely met by the new drafting; but they were less satisfied than ever that the Government's intention was not to prohibit sympathetic as well as general strikes. By means of hypothetical cases they tried hard to draw from the Attorney-General an admission to that effect. The latter, however, though he conceded that the new Bill would make illegal certain strikes which were not at present