Foreign News: Snowden’s Waterloo

Such language as has rarely sullied British Parliamentary debate was heard in an angry, tired and sleepy House of Commons last week when crippled but indomitable Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden forced Parliament to sit continuously for 21 hr. 48 min.—at an estimated cost of £250 ($1,215) for unwonted lighting and overtime pay to attendants. From start to finish the grueling debate was a snarling match between Mr. Snowden and his bellicose predecessor as Chancellor, famed Winston (“Winnie”) Churchill.

Assembling at 2:45 p. m. the House began to debate Clause 17 of Mr. Snowden’s budget (TIME, April 21). At 12:30 a. m. that night Mr. Churchill, weary from his hours of onslaught, snarled: “How much longer does the Chancellor of the Exchequer intend to keep this House in session?”

With a sly grin, Mr. Snowden accepted the challenge: “We have been in session now nine hours and have finished one clause,” said he. “The sitting will continue until we have dealt with nine more clauses, until we reach Clause 27.”

“All this debating has taken place,” shouted Mr. Churchill, “because the right honorable gentleman wants to show that whatever he puts into a finance bill must be rammed through regardless of the cost to the house or to the party of which he is a prominent feature, if not always a bright ornament.” The Chancellor made no reply, sat white and stern as Conservatives booed, Laborites cheered and Lady Cynthia Mosley, M. P. went out for a large cushion, brought it back into the House, lay down on a bench and ostentatiously went to sleep. (Her husband, Sir Oswald, resigned from the Cabinet after quarrelling with Chancellor Snowden — TIME, June 2.) As the bitter night wore on members of all parties sprawled and snored on their benches, awakened once by a sudden clap of thunder, roused occasionally by party whips to speak a needed word. The whips at last became so frantic as to stir up members slumbering in the lobbies by piping on police whistles.

Again and again Mr. Churchill moved to “report progress” (i. e. to adjourn) and getting no response from the Chancellor, spat out as he reiterated his proposal: “I hope that the Honorable Gentleman will indicate that he accepts this motion if only by a grunt!”

When Mr. Snowden only pursed his bloodless lips the tighter, Mr. Churchill complained to the Speaker that “the Chancellor is treating this House with insolence and offensiveness — I may say with supremely insolent indifference and contempt!”

Grinning once more as he saw another opening the Chancellor snarled back, “I have been charged with treating His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition with contempt. On the contrary, I have done my best to conceal and hide my contempt!”

This adder sting touched off Sir Austen Chamberlain, be-monocled, correct and supremely supercilious Peace Prizeman (1926), whilom British Foreign Minister. Wagging a bony forefinger at the Chancellor he cried in shocked protest: “That remark in its tone and temper stands alone in the records of the House! The Right Honorable Gentleman is always ready to impute motives of such a character to the opposition and he has caused 300 gentlemen to sit up all night, not to do business, but for his own satisfaction.”

About this time a smell of frying bacon from the Parliamentary kitchen permeated the House, and so many members rushed out to breakfast that only desperate efforts by the whips maintained a quorum (40). With all but inhuman perseverance Mr. Snowden sat on, ignoring breakfast time, snarling through the long, hot morning, still relentless as noon approached and passed. Suddenly Mr. Churchill challenged on a minor issue, demanded a division (vote). In this emergency no tellers could be found. They had sneaked out to lunch. Triumphantly Snowden-baiter Churchill moved adjournment in this “emergency” and the Chancellor was forced to yield, sour-faced. As he left the Government Bench, triumphant Winnie Churchill shouted mockingly: “Snowden, you have met your Waterloo!”

Only female M. P. to sit through the entire afternoon, night and morning debate was Miss Ethel Bentham (Laborite). After less than two hours’ recess, the House convened again as the Committee of Supply, voted down a motion by Sir Austen Chamberlain to censure the Government for failing to alleviate unemployment. In the stodgy debate which followed (but got nowhere), Prime Minister MacDonald announced that, on the basis of a proposal by Liberal Leader David Lloyd George, the Liberal and Labor parties will pool their “best brains” in a conference to devise “work schemes.” Efforts had been made to induce the Conservatives into this conference, and to label unemployment before the House as “a non-partisan issue,” but Conservative Leader Stanley Baldwin shrewdly abstained from entanglement.

As usual dynamic Mr. Churchill had his say on unemployment—though not in the House of Commons. Rushing out to lecture at Oxford, bleary-eyed from loss of sleep, he proposed the creation of an “Economic Parliament.”

“Parliament would be well advised,” he lectured, pounding the rostrum, “to create a body subordinate to itself to assist in its deliberations to the utmost. The spectacle of economic subordinates debating day after day with a fearless detachment from public opinion all the most disputed questions of finance and trade and reaching conclusions by voting would be an innovation, but an innovation which could easily be embraced by our flexible constitutional system!”

In the U. S. such an economic parliament or congress might give Henry Ford or Samuel Insull, for example, a forum in which to argue before the nation what should be done with Muscle Shoals. In England a quite informal advisory council created by James Ramsay MacDonald (TIME, Feb. 24) and including such tycoons as Sir John Cadman (Chairman, Anglo-Persian Oil Co.), Sir Josiah Stamp (a Bank of England boardmember) has been debating the Empire’s economic problems, but on the quiet and without voting. What combat-loving Mr. Churchill seems to want is an economic arena in which tycoon will snarl at tycoon. Politician that he is, Mr. Churchill qualified his scheme by suggesting that members of the Economic Parliament should all be M. P.’s chosen by Parliament proper for their “high technical and business qualifications.” Mr. Churchill indicated his belief that about one fifth of his Parliamentary colleagues possess these “high qualifications” and could be safely drafted, (together with himself, no doubt) into the Economic Parliament.