Category: 100 Years Ago

7 MAY 1924

On the Report Stage of the Budget resolutions in the House of Commons, unsuccessful attempts were made by Opposition members to obtain further reductions of the tea, sugar and cocoa duties in the shape of preference to the Empire Product. The Chancellor said the proposals would involve him in loss of revenue which he was not prepared to consider.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated in the House of Commons that before it was decided that the McKenna Duties should lapse careful consideration was given to representations from the various interests concerned.

6 MAY 1924

The German elections have resulted in a big loss for the Socialist Party, but it remained the largest in the Reichstag and was expected to be asked to form a Government.

The Bavarian Cabinet resigned.

More questions were asked in the House of Commons with regard to the McKenna Duties. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury scouted a suggestion that on the expiry of the duties a dumping of motor cars from the United States would take place. The Opposition, through Stanley Baldwin, asked for an opportunity to discuss the question. The Government offered a day for discussion for either the same week or the following week.

5 MAY 1924

Stanley Baldwin, the former Prime Minister, speaking at the annual dinner of the Junior Imperial League in London, indicated the main lines of Unionist policy, and said that if returned to power again he was going to have a thorough investigation to the question of retail profiteering.

There was a strong turnout in the German elections with the counting starting immediately and the results expected imminently.

The Belgian Premier and Foreign Minister returned to Belgium after their conversations with Ramsay MacDonald.

President Coolidge’s intimation that he favoured a policy of exclusion on the question of immigration caused dismay in Japanese circles.

23 APRIL 1924

President Coolidge, in an address to the Associated Press of America, declared that when the reparations question was settled he would favour the summoning of a world conference on the limitation of armaments and the codification of international law.

Addressing a Liberal meeting, David Lloyd George, the former Prime Minister, bitterly reproached the Socialist party for “the humiliating conditions” under which the Liberal party was expected to continue to support the Government.

22 APRIL 1924

Speaking at the Independent Labour Party conference in York, Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, stated his support for the civil service and the assistance that they had offered the new Government.

The death of Marie Corelli was announced.

Emanuel Shinwell decided proposals to make working in pits safer.

21 APRIL 1924

A resolution held at the Scottish Trades Union Congress condemned the practice of allowing Army, Navy and Air Force bands to enter into competition with civilian bands.

The British Empire Exhibition was opened by His Majesty the King.

Leon Trotsky said that Ramsay MacDonald, the British Prime Minister, was “not a true representative of the workers”.

20 APRIL 1924

Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, said that there was no need for a General Election for two to three years and defended the record of the socialist Government.

Master Anthony Ball, the son of Sir William Bull MP, piloted the first tube train from Highgate to Moorgate via the Camden Town junctions and the northern sections of the City and London railway. [Anthony Ball became a railway expert and later on became the Chair of London Transport]

19 APRIL 1924

France stated that they had no intention of ending their military occupation of the Ruhr and Rhineland.

Opening the election campaign of the South African party in Johannesburg, General Smuts, the Prime Minister, denounced the Nationalist-Labour pact as a ‘miserable subterfuge’ and ‘the most immoral things that has happened in South African politics’.

18 APRIL 1924

The Reparations Commission decided to approve the conclusions in the Experts’ reports and to adopt the measures. The German Chancellor in a statement to a French press representative said that Germany would make her co-operation contingent on the concession of her demands for the re-establishment of her economic and administrative unity. Political prisoners would have to be pardoned.

Kiyoura Keigo, the Japanese Prime Minister, expressed regret at the decision of the United States Congress to exclude Japanese immigrants. This action he said would impair, but not break, the long-standing friendship between the two nations.

Moscow stated that it was disappointed at the speech made by Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, saying that it was “cloaking the demands of the British bankers”.

17 APRIL 1924

Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, stated that as regards to the Government’s foreign policy, he had never made any secret of his conviction that in any settlement Germany must play the part of a voluntarily co-operating nation.

The United States Senate adopted and reapproved by 71 votes to 4 votes the Japanese exclusion amendment to the Immigration Bill.

Negotiations took place in London for a settlement of the shipyard dispute, and a resumption in work was expected.