might be open to objection in detail. Criticism of Mr. Baldwin's speech was opened by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, who said he was sorry that in reducing taxation the Chancellor had dealt more with property taxes than with life taxes. The workingclasses were admittedly overtaxed, and their consumption was diminished on account of the large proportion of taxation that entered into their living expenses. He agreed that the best way to improve the lot of the working classes was by stimulating trade, but he believed the idea that all the money saved in Income Tax went into investments which stimulated trade was fallacious, and that as a matter of fact of the 6d. which it was proposed to take off the Income Tax, not more than a penny would go to stimulate trade, while 4d. or 5d. would be spent in unnecessary parasitical forms of luxury. The Labour Party took the view that debt reduction was the best highway to tax reduction, that the only way to stimulate trade was to increase the standard of livelihood of the people and to amplify the volume of the consumption of necessaries. The opposite view was expressed by Sir Alfred Mond, who said that the chief consideration in fixing the financial programme should be not the reduction of the debt, but the burden of taxation which the country could carry. He thought that until they had got to more normal conditions, they should not devote such large sums as were proposed for the mere reduction of debt. Mr. Asquith recalled the fact that when the last Budget had been presented he had described it as a gamble, but he had to admit now that the gamble had come off. He criticised the Chancellor for reducing the duty on beer instead of on sugar, which would have cost no more, and been far more beneficial to the country. Mr. Baldwin defended his action on the ground that owing to the state of the market for sugar, a reduction of duty at this juncture might not have produced the desired effect of cheapening the commodity for the consumer.

Meanwhile the Government had issued its new Housing Bill (on April 12). The chief provisions of this were that a subsidy not exceeding 61. per house per year for twenty years should be granted on small working-class houses built before October 1, 1925, and that local authorities should have power to assist private enterprise by giving a lump sum to private builders or by providing the sums payable by individuals to a building society for furnishing them with houses, or by refunding a portion of the rates over a number of years. Although the second reading of the Bill was not to take place till April 24, the Labour Party immediately decided to hand in an amendment for its rejection on the ground that it was inadequate to deal with the present housing shortage and that it provided only for an unreasonably small type of house.

When the Bill was brought up for its second reading, the Minister of Health, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, in explaining its provisions, gave some interesting details regarding housing

conditions in England. There was, he said, no question more urgent just then for the country than housing. Great masses of the people were to-day unable to find separate dwellings for themselves. The overcrowding constituted a perpetual danger to the physical and moral health of the community, and was responsible for much unrest and discontent, though its evils were for the most part borne with great patience and good humour. He found the origin of the house shortage not in the war conditions, but in the events of the historic year 1909, the year of Mr. Lloyd George's famous Budget. Previously to that year there had grown up an elaborate machinery which provided the financial resources necessary for the private builder. That machinery had been built up on the basis of confidence in the security of property as an investment. That confidence was first shaken and then shattered, not so much by the famous Budget itself as by the devastating eloquence with which Mr. Lloyd George had enlivened his campaign in favour of that measure. What they had to do therefore to-day was not merely to reinstate the small builder but to restore the financial machinery by which alone he was able to carry on his operations. Private enterprise was to-day beginning to function once more; during the last six months upwards of 12,000 houses had been completed without assistance from the State or from local authorities, and a further 16,000 were in course of erection. Most of these houses, it was true, were of a superior kind, and the problem was to get private enterprise to cover the whole field of housing, including the type of house which was desired to-day by the working class. The best way to attain this end seemed to him to be by providing a subsidy to local authorities who might use it either to give assistance to private enterprise or to provide houses themselves. The subsidy was to be 61. per annum for houses of an approximate area of 900 sq. feet, containing a scullery, living room, parlour, and three bedrooms and a bathroom. It could be given either in a lump sum or by refunding a portion of the rates, either to private builders or to building societies. He had been told by the London County Council that 80 per cent. of the applications received by them were for houses of two or three rooms, because the applicants could not afford more. His desire was that these people should have separate dwellings the rent of which they could afford to pay.

On behalf of the Labour Party Mr. Wheatley moved the rejection of the Bill. The housing shortage, in his view, was due in the first instance to the operation of rings and combines in the building industry. The Bill did nothing either to increase the facilities of local authorities to obtain land for housing, or to prevent the operations of rings which controlled the manufacture of the building materials required. The houses proposed were miserably small; they would very soon be slums, and would stereotype poverty. Sir A. Mond criticised the dimensions of

the houses which it was proposed to subsidise; the type of parlour which could be got into such houses was not worth having, and he did not see why the dimensions could not be increased to 950 or 1,000 sq. feet. He was afraid that in this matter the Minister had merely bowed to popular clamour. Sir J. Simon criticised the limitation of the subsidy to a single flat rate of 61. for twenty years; in the case of smaller local authorities it was a convenience to get the State contribution spread over sixty years. He warned the Government against the danger of lowering the standard of housing accommodation. The Attorney-General, in winding up the debate, stated that not only had Manchester given its name to the scheme embodied in the Bill, but that the Manchester authorities had already assured the Government of their willingness and eagerness to co-operate in making the Bill a success. He promised that further consideration would be given in Committee to the question of the size of the houses. The second reading was carried on the division by 340 votes to 140.

On April 23 the Conference at Lausanne between the Allied Powers and the Turks was resumed. The British representative on this occasion was not Lord Curzon but Sir Horace Rumbold. The negotiations excited only languid interest in England, as practically all the points at issue between England and the Turks had been already settled at the previous session of the Conference.

On April 26 the Duke of York, the King's second son, was married to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon amid scenes of great enthusiasm. The popularity of the royal house was demonstrated even more strikingly a couple of days later, when the King went to the new Stadium at Wembley, on the outskirts of London, which was thrown open for the first time for the final Cup Tie match of the Football Association. The Stadium is supposed to be the largest place of its kind in the world, being built to accommodate 120,000 people. The King received a remarkable ovation from a crowd which was estimated at not less than 200,000, huge numbers having forced their way into the ground after the turnstiles had been closed. The arrangements for keeping the crowd in hand broke down, and but for its own good humour and the tact of the police a catastrophe might have ensued. As it was, several persons suffered serious injuries, and the affair was the subject of searching questions in Parliament during the ensuing week.

On the same day Mr. Bonar Law left London in order to take a short sea-voyage. The Premier had returned to Parliament after the Easter recess suffering from a relaxed throat which prevented him from taking any effective part in debate; and the doctors now advised a sea-voyage as the most speedy method of effecting a cure. A short time previously the absence. of the Premier, for however short a space, would have caused grave concern in the Conservative ranks, so little was the

confidence felt in the ability of his lieutenants; but the speeches of Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Neville Chamberlain on the Budget and on the Housing Bill had created so favourable an impression that it was now felt that they could safely be left in charge.

On May 3 the Duke of Devonshire in the House of Lords and Mr. Baldwin in the House of Commons read an announcement which had been made by Sir Percy Cox (High Commissioner of Iraq) in Bagdad, defining future relations between Britain and that country. It stated that since the Treaty of Alliance which had been signed on October 10, 1922, between the King of England and the King of Iraq, the Iraq Government had made great strides along the path of independent and stable existence, and had been able successfully to assume administrative responsibility. As Britain was anxious to terminate her commitments in respect of Iraq as soon as possible, it was now proposed that the Treaty, instead of running for twenty years, as originally intended, should terminate upon Iraq becoming a member of the League of Nations, and in any case not later than four years after the conclusion of peace with Turkey, and a protocol had been signed to this effect. Both Mr. Baldwin and the Duke of Devonshire expressed the thanks of the Government to Sir Percy Cox and his officers for their work in bringing about the conclusion of the Treaty; and Viscount Grey took the opportunity to express his sense of relief at the prospect that a definite term had now been fixed to an obligation on their part which in the long run might not have been popular in Mesopotamia.

On May 5 the King and Queen left London for Rome in order to spend a week's holiday in Italy. They were enthusiastically welcomed, and went through a round of State functions and sight-seeing. On May 9 they paid a visit to the Vatican, and were in private conversation with the Pope for twenty minutes. On May 12 they made a pilgrimage to the graves of English soldiers, and at the cemetery of Montecchio the King gave a touching address in which he expressed the hope that war would not henceforth be accepted as a burden recurrent and inevitable upon mankind. In England little political importance was attached to this Italian visit, but it was generally welcomed as likely to create an atmosphere favourable for the settlement of certain outstanding questions between the two countries-the chief of these related to Jubaland in Abyssinia-and also for promoting that closer co-operation in regard to Germany which the separate action of France seemed to render advisable.

Just about this time the reparations question again came into the political foreground. Contrary to the universal anticipation, the situation in the Ruhr dragged on from week to week without any appreciable change either for better or for worse, so that the critics of the Government found no occasion for raising the question again in Parliament. The Labour Party, however, was not inactive in the matter. On March 21 an official Labour

delegation had visited the Ruhr district with a view to drawing up a report on the situation. Although the delegates returned after a few days, their report was not finally approved by the Labour Party and made public till April 18. It was highly critical of the Government's policy. A continuance of the present policy of inaction, it said, could not fail in the end to undermine the position of the British representatives in the occupied zone. This zone was dangerously near a powder magazine in the Ruhr, and a policy of drift at such a crisis was incompatible with British dignity and British interests. In the opinion of the delegates, the actual situation could not be dealt with adequately by means of any machinery provided under the Treaty of Versailles, and a new instrument was required. Since British interests and honour were more directly involved than those of any other State except France, Belgium, and Germany, the initiative should be taken by the British Government in the form of a frank and definite statement of British policy, and no effort should be spared to keep in constant touch with both sides.

That

A couple of days later (April 20) Lord Buckmaster again raised the question in the House of Lords, urging the Government to withdraw the British Army of Occupation if it was no longer serving any useful purpose. Lord Curzon took the opportunity to define anew the Government's position. He declined to entertain the suggestion of withdrawing the British Army of Occupation from the Rhine, a step which, if announced, would, he said, create a feeling of dismay among their Allies. He held that the speeches of French Ministers showed conclusively that any intervention on their part up till then would have been premature, and would have done more harm than good. Their guiding consideration throughout had been that the Entente between France and Britain and their Allies should not be broken. Their policy was fundamentally based upon the Entente as the one solid and stable factor in a world of flux. had been, and was, the underlying principle of their policy, whether in East or West. Consistently with that, the Government had observed an attitude of watchful and friendly neutrality. They had never given, and should not give the smallest encouragement to Germany to evade her liabilities. They had not receded from the proposals put forward by the Prime Minister in January, but that did not mean that these proposals were stereotyped and immutable in detail. As regards security, they were willing at any suitable time in the future to discuss plans or proposals, but this could not be carried out by the dismemberment of Germany or the setting out of a new and running sore in the heart of Europe. In regard to reparations, England had not abandoned, and would not abandon, its own claims; while in regard to the foreign debts due to themselves, they had already made an offer almost profuse in its generosity. They regarded the problem as an international problem which could only be