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9 DECEMBER 1925

The Bill confirming the Irish agreement was approved by the House of Commons.

The Government of India (Civil Services) Bill, which had passed the House of Lords, was read a second time in the Commons. A money resolution under the Land Settlement Facilities Act, 1919, was agreed to, fulfilling, it was explained, a promise made to Local Authorities that the State would hand over to them small holdings which were bought for the settlement of ex-Service men, on a self-supporting basis.

The Rating and Valuation Bill passed second reading in the House of Lords.

An “agreed” document on the question of rural land policy was issued by the Liberal and Radical Candidates’ Association. Mr Lloyd George expressed satisfaction with the scheme.

Lord Oxford, speaking at Liverpool, said if he had to try to condense into three words the policy of the present Government in regard to the coal industry, he did not think it could have been expressed in more concentrated and accurate form than “wait and see.”

Mr Ramsay MacDonald, touring his constituency, told his hearers that peace in Ireland would be cheap at the price of a million or two.

The costliness of the present system of transport was brought out at the sitting of the Coal Commission by a witness. The private ownership of waggons was a survival of the early days of the railway, and one for which no parallel could be found in any other country.

Details are now available of the disaster at Fenny Stratford level crossing, in which a charabanc that had crashed through the crossing gates was struck by a train. A survivor gives a graphic story of her terrifying experience, while the signalman on duty near the scene tells what he saw. Seven people are dead, and five are in a critical condition.

A Geneva telegram states that the Council of the League unanimously adopted the Hague Court’s advisory opinion regarding the procedure to be followed in deciding the Mosul question.

According to a Teheran correspondent, a secret agreement is being negotiated between Turkey and Russia.

8 DECEMBER 1925

The safeguarding of industry resolutions embodying the 33⅓ per cent customs duties on imported cutlery and gloves passed report stage in the House of Commons.

Lord Oxford, addressing the Liberal and Radical Candidates’ Association, counselled them as to reaching an agreed land policy which they could place before the country. Twelve years ago the party had hoped to bring to a climax a series of reforms by a drastic reform of the land system. War had intervened. It now lay with them to reach unity on an agreed policy, but one which would avoid risky, dubious, uncertain expedients.

The text of the new Irish Bill to give effect to the agreement reached on the Irish boundary question has been issued. It consists of only two clauses.

Addressing the members of the London Irish Club, Lord Derby expressed the hope that the unhappy time of Ireland was past.

In the Dail President Cosgrave, in moving the second reading of the Bill giving effect to the recent Irish Boundary settlement, expressed the view that it would mean the turning point in Irish history.

The Government are asking a further £9,000,000 for the coal mining industry subvention, making £19,000,000 in all. A memorandum explains how the scheme is working.

Major J. W. Hills (Unionist) was elected by a majority of 5011 for the Ripon Division in the vacancy caused by the appointment of Mr E. F. L. Wood as Viceroy of India. There had been no contest in the division since 1910, and women electors voted for the first time.

7 DECEMBER 1925

Sir Austen Chamberlain and Mr Amery have arrived in Geneva for the meeting of the League Council. The most urgent matters on the agenda are the Graeco Bulgarian frontier dispute and the Mosul question.

The German Cabinet has resigned, a step which Dr Luther, the Chancellor, had stated would be taken after the signature of the Locarno Treaties. President von Hindenburg has accepted the Government’s resignation, and has requested the Chancellor to conduct the country’s affairs until a new Cabinet has been formed.

In his annual report to President Coolidge, Mr Dwight F. Davis, the United States Secretary of War, declares that the present strength of the Army is inadequate and an increase in personnel necessary. Stress is laid on the strategic importance of the Panama Canal, and a ten years’ programme for the increase of its defenders is foreshadowed, as is also a programme for the defence of Oahu.

Mr Lloyd George addressed a meeting at Coventry upon his land proposals, and said they were not submitted as tables of the law immutable. He was sanguine that at the Liberal Conference today and tomorrow complete agreement would be reached which would permit of the submission of proposals representing the whole body of Liberal opinion in the country. The task of liberation which he was asking the Liberal Party to undertake would do its health good; there was nothing like hard work for curing megrims and tantrums.

Mr de Valera denounces the Irish agreement, accuses Britain of cheating, and adds that now that Irishmen have been found prepared to put their hand to an instrument dismembering the country, his only hope is that the people will not consent to it. Sir James Craig, the North of Ireland Premier, had a great reception at Belfast, and said he hoped that the new agreement might have a lasting effect for the good of all Ireland, Great Britain and the Empire.

Mr A. J. Cook, secretary of the Miners’ Federation, speaking in the Durham coalfields, said we would be face to face during the next twelve months with the greatest economic crisis this country had ever known, a crisis that was going to have great political consequences.

The Executive Council of the Shale Miners’ and Oilworkers’ Association, at a meeting at Bathgate, agreed to recommend acceptance of the new terms of settlement in the shale mines crisis.

6 DECEMBER 1925

It was reported that residents of Tarbrax, a remote village in Lanarkshire, were facing starvation. 400 people marched to Carnwath in the hope of receiving some poor relief.

There was hope of a strike settlement between the employers and the Executive Council of the National Union of Shale Miners and Oilworkers.

The entire German Cabinet resigned, with Dr Luther charged with seeking to form a new one.

5 DECEMBER 1925

Opinion in Ireland is divided on the Irish boundary settlement. Belfast accepts it with a feeling of relief, Londonderry is disappointed, and Dublin criticises it as not a good bargain from an Irish point of view.

The Prime Minister stated in the House of Commons that he had decided to postpone the fourth safeguarding resolution, that dealing with paper, for this session owing to the shortness of time remaining available for business, and to allow time for the Irish Bill.

The Rating and Valuation Bill passed third reading in the House of Commons, and the House of Lords at a formal sitting gave it a first reading.

The Roads and Streets in Police Burghs (Scotland) Bill and the Circuit Courts and Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Bill were read a third time in the House of Commons.

Professor Charles Sarolea, in an article entitled “France’s Ordeal: Battle of the Franc,” emphasises the dangers involved in a collapse of the French currency.

Proposals for the future organisation of the broadcasting service were submitted to Lord Crawford’s Committee by Sir Arthur Stanley, Professor A. M. Low, and Mr D. S. Richards, on behalf of the Wireless League. These included the forming of a representative commission to be in supreme control, and the devoting of all the revenue, less a deduction to the Post Office for collection, to improvements. Plans for the detection and punishment of “oscillators” were also mentioned.

At a sitting of the Coal Commission in London Mr Markham, an owner, alleged that miners spent 8s. to 10s. a week on cinemas.

Complete agreement was reached in the Irish boundary crisis. The settlement provides for the retention of the present boundary and for financial adjustments.

The Tithe Bill was read a second time and the Expiring Laws Bill a third time in the House of Lords.

Safeguarding resolutions imposing duties on imported fabric gloves, fur and leather gloves, and imported gas mantles were passed by the House of Commons in Committee of Ways and Means.

During an all night sitting on the duty for the safeguarding of the cutlery industry, the Socialist party, in its anxiety to obstruct the Government, unwittingly plunged the House of Commons into the first secret session since the outbreak of war in August 1914.

The Spanish Military Directory has resigned, and has been replaced by a civilian Cabinet. The King, in a message to General Primo de Rivera, the Prime Minister, says he trusts that within a reasonable period, which His Majesty hopes will be brief, the country will have constitutional laws of a normal character.

The French Chamber, after an all night sitting, passed M. Loucheur’s Finance Bill as a whole by 257 votes to 229. Fifty two Socialists abstained from voting, and this saved the Briand Government.