injurious to the export trade of Lancashire, certain Conservative members from that county found themselves at one with the Free Traders, but to them also the President of the Board of Trade refused to make any concession.

The debate on the Vote for the Office of Works and Public Buildings gave occasion for a curious display of national susceptibility on the part of certain Scottish members who cherished Home Rule aspirations. Through the generosity of a private donor, St. Stephen's Hall had recently been adorned with a number of paintings representing notable scenes from British history. One of the pictures showed the English and Scottish Commissioners presenting to Queen Anne the Articles of Agreement for the Parliamentary union of the two countries. The sight of the picture unexpectedly awoke bitter recollections in the minds of many of the Scottish members, and to express his resentment Mr. Johnston, a Labour member for Dundee, moved a reduction in the Vote for the Office of Works and Public Buildings. He referred to the Act of Union as a humiliation for Scotland, and maintained that some fitter subject could have been found for illustrating what Scotland had done for the building of Britain. Other speakers -notably Mr. Buchan, the member for the Scottish Universitiespointed to the great benefits which had resulted to Scotland from the Union, but the Nationalists were not to be pacified, and they carried the matter to a division, in which they were defeated by 239 votes to 71.

In the debate on the Vote for the Colonial Office (July 19), Mr. Thomas called attention to the fact that in a White Paper recently issued the Government had stated that the claim of the white settlers in East Africa to share the responsibilities of government could not be ignored, and he asked whether this was not a departure from the policy laid down in the White Paper of 1923, according to which England without the intervention of any other authority on the spot was to be a direct trustee of the native races. The Secretary for the Colonies, in reply, said that East Africa would naturally make progress towards self-government, and this did in fact mean the association of the white community with the British Government in trusteeship for the weaker and more numerous part of the population; but there was no question of this country's surrendering its trusteeship. He promised that the commission which was soon going out to report on the question of the union or federation of the East African colonies would also consider how in the future the foundation could be laid among the natives of a responsibility for their own lives in the political as well as in the economic sphere.

On the Vote for the Fishery Board for Scotland (July 20), a strong appeal was made to the Government by some Scottish Liberal members, supported by Mr. Lloyd George, to come to the help of the Scotch herring fishing industry, which was in a terribly

depressed condition, worse even than coal and agriculture. The decline in the industry was attributed chiefly to the falling off in the demand for herrings from Russia, and on that ground, if no other, the Government was urged to try to improve relations with that country. The Secretary for Scotland replied that the Government had done nothing to prevent Russia from purchasing these herrings if she so desired, and laid the blame for the loss of trade on the disorganisation of communications in Russia. For the rest, he could give no definite promise of assistance to the industry, though he recognised the great debt which the country owed to the fishermen for their services during the war.

On the same day (July 20), Mr. W. Runciman called the attention of the House to the proceedings of the International Economic Conference recently held at Geneva, to which he had been a delegate, particularly to its condemnation of the policy of increasing tariffs and strengthening trade barriers. He expressed regret that the British Government, so far from taking the lead in this movement, had appeared to hesitate in approving the work of the Conference while other maritime nations had endorsed it. The Conference, he said, had shown a general recognition of the fact that every country was dependent on the trade of every other as well as on its own, and he asked for an assurance from the Government that they, too, recognised this interdependence and intended to act as the leaders of economic thought. The President of the Board of Trade, in reply, expressed approval of the work of the Conference, and pointed complacently to the fact that the bulk of the recommendations of the Conference were based on the experience of Great Britain and on the action taken by that country in the past. With regard to the present and future he was more reserved. They had, he said, to face certain facts, one of which was that France had recently placed an embargo on the import of coal which was contrary both to the spirit and the precise recommendations of the Conference. The Government was anxious to see progress made by treaties and through the machinery of the League of Nations, which had begun on sound lines. On the question of reducing British tariffs the Minister was silent.

The House of Commons took leave of the Finance Bill on July 22, when its rejection was formally moved by a Labour member on the third reading. A couple of Conservative speakers gave strong expression to the feeling of disappointment prevalent in their party at the Government's continued failure to redeem its promises of economy; one warned the Government that there was a "veiled insurrection" among the back benchers, and that terrible things would happen if there was not a reduction of expenditure in the next twelve months. The Secretary for the Treasury, who was left to reply for the Government, ignoring the critics of his own party, said that the Government had every reason to be satisfied with the reception accorded to the Budget

proposals; after the warning given by the Chancellor twelve months before that additional taxation might have to be imposed, the country had heard them not only with surprise but with a considerable measure of relief. He singled out as the two distinguishing features of the Budget the system designed for the simplification of the income tax, and the provisions for checking evasions of super-tax. The Conservative malcontents did not carry their rebellious spirit into the lobby, and the third reading was carried by 338 votes to 86.

Before Parliament rose on July 30 it disposed of the remaining departmental votes, some of which gave rise to discussions of general interest. The debate on the Vote for the Board of Trade (July 25) gave members of the House of Commons, as usual, an opportunity of expressing their views on the state of trade. Mr. Lloyd George complained of the small attendance during debates on trade and industry, and impressed on the House of Commons its duty to give a lead to the public in this matter and wake it from its apathy. He adopted a somewhat alarmist attitude regarding the state of trade, pointing out that there was a decrease of between 100,000 and 200,000 in the number of those employed in productive industries as compared with 1923, not to mention the numbers who were on short time in the cotton and other industries. In addition, their favourable trade balance had all but disappeared, and they had become a debtor nation to a very large extent. Mr. Alexander spoke in a similar strain, pointing to the great decline in exports since 1924. The President of the Board of Trade, on the other hand, would not commit himself either to an optimistic or a pessimistic view, while Sir R. Horne expressed the opinion that the capacity of Great Britain to meet the situation was undoubted, though it could not long stand such shocks as those of the previous year. Mr. Sidney Webb, while admitting that the situation was on the whole gloomy, said it was a mistake to suppose that there had been no resilience in British trade in the adverse circumstances of the last few years; there had been a remarkable increase in the development of new industries producing for the home rather than the foreign market. It was, however, unfortunate that the home market was limited by the penury of the wage-earners and by the fact that the people spent some 300,000,000l. a year on alcoholic drink.

In the debate on the Board of Education Vote (July 26), the President of the Board again disappointed educational reformers by refusing to pledge the Government to raise the school-leaving age from 14 to 15 within the next five years, as recommended by the Hadow Committee. All he would promise was that local authorities which desired to raise the school age compulsorily should be allowed to do so, provided their school accommodation and their teaching arrangements were adequate. Lord Percy had again to listen to complaints that he was sacrificing educational

progress to economy. This time his bitterest critic was a member of his own party; Lady Astor, as a Conservative who took social reform seriously, naïvely confessed that she sometimes wondered whether she was in the right party, and warned the President of the Board of Education against the reactionary influence which was becoming too strong in the party.

In a debate on the Ministry of Labour Estimates on July 26, Mr. T. Shaw painted the unemployment position in the darkest colours, but the official view, as expounded by the Parliamentary Secretary, was unusually optimistic. Mr. Betterton pointed out that the number on the "live" register had remained at the same level for some time, while the number of insured persons had risen by over 700,000 between 1922 and 1927. There were now 1,150,000 more persons in employment in the country than in 1922. While there had been a fall in wages over industry as a whole since 1921, the reduction in the cost of living had been at least as considerable. It was true that the first half of the present year had been helped to a considerable extent by arrears of orders from the previous year, but even allowing for that, he thought that the volume of trade and the state of employment as a whole were probably more satisfactory than in recent years. As showing the comparatively peaceful conditions which had prevailed in industry during the year, he mentioned that the number of disputes reported to the Ministry during 1927, and the number of workmen involved, were only half those for the corresponding period of 1925, and the number of working days lost little more than one-tenth.

Besides the Budget and the Trade Union Bill, Parliament had during the summer passed a number of minor Bills, of which the most important was probably the Moneylenders' Bill (vide ANNUAL REGISTER, 1926, p. 124), which this year came safely into port. Two important measures-the Cinema Bill and the Local Audit Bill-had not yet emerged from Committee, where they had been the subject of much wrangling. The Premier was consequently unable to carry out his intention of closing the session in the summer and commencing a new Parliamentary year in the autumn; Parliament, on July 29, merely adjourned as usual till November 8. The closing debates of the session in the House of Commons had been very poorly attended, and a profound calm in the political world had succeeded the turmoil caused by the proposals for reforming the House of Lords. That body had during the session shown its reactionary character by passing, in addition to the Government's scheme of reforming the Upper House, an Aliens Bill which rendered permanent the restrictions imposed as a temporary measure on alien immigration and residence just after the war.

The references made in Parliament during the discussion of the Finance Bill to the depressed state of agriculture and coal

mining found a counterpart in various public utterances outside. After waiting for over two years, agriculturists began to grow impatient at the Government's delay in carrying out its election promise of not merely preserving agriculture, but restoring it to its former prosperity. Mr. Baldwin was expected to give them some message of encouragement in an address which he was to deliver in Cornwall on June 24, but although speaking in an essentially rural district, he had little to say about agriculture except to condemn the Liberal and Labour schemes of land tenure and stabilisation of prices. The National Union of Farmers thereupon issued a statement bitterly complaining of the omission from his speech of any constructive proposals for improving the condition of the industry, and for implementing the pledges he had given in his election address.

The Prime Minister dealt with the complaints of the National Farmers' Union in an address which he delivered in Lincolnshire on July 21 to an audience of 20,000 people. He laid stress on the fact that agriculture was in a depressed state in nearly all countries in the world, and that many other Governments had tried to solve the problem and failed. He confessed that it was not possible for his Government to find such a solution of the problem as would convert depression into prosperity, any more than it was possible in the case of coal, steel, or many other industries. Other parties might promise to do this, but none would be able; and the Conservatives alone had the honesty to say so. Nevertheless, he claimed that in the short time at their disposal they had done more than other previous Governments. He regretted that two years previously they had not been able to secure an agreement between all parties on the solution of the agricultural problem, owing to the refusal of one section of the industry to co-operate; now it was too late. He dwelt on the pledges which the Government had fulfilled-the reduction of agricultural rates, the combating of pests and diseases, and the establishment of the sugar-beet industry; and he gave a definite promise to draw up a scheme for the provision of agricultural credit. He declared a subsidy to be out of the question, and advised the farmers to seek salvation in an improved system of marketing.

The Premier's speech, so far from mollifying the National Farmers' Union, added fuel to its wrath. It immediately issued a rejoinder in which it stated that his speech had been received by the farming community with "feelings of amazement," and stigmatised him as a "political cheapjack" who made no attempt to carry out his election promises, chief of which it reckoned the application to agriculture of the methods of "safeguarding." This clear hint that the.farmers desired some form of Protection was lost on the Premier. The Minister of Agriculture and other Conservative members were equally unresponsive to similar representations; and discontent both with the Government and