Category: 100 Years Ago

9 MAY 1924

The Government of India (Leave of Absence) Bill, which empowers the Secretary of State to grant leave of absence to the Governor General, was read a second time in the House of Lords.

A vote of £7 million for dockyards at home and abroad was discussed in the House of Commons, and the question of the redundancy of some existing establishments referred to, the Government being urged to investigate the question.

Winston Churchill, addressing Liverpool Conservatives, declared that today the great need was for unity in resistance to the spreading of subversive Socialist doctrines. He condemned the Budget as Mid-Victorian and a death blow to social reforms.

David Lloyd George, the former Prime Minister, addressed a letter to the press correcting Winston Churchill’s statement that he had promised “whole-hearted support” to a Unionist Government, and pointing out that, as a condition of support, he stipulated certain policies, which, he holds, were not thereafter pursued.

8 MAY 1924

Replying to Lord Raglan in the House of Lords, the Under Secretary for the Colonies said that the insinuation contained in the question that there was a Zionist Tyranny in Palestine was unfounded.

Addressing a Liberal gathering at Chelmsford, Herbert Asquith emphasised that he had no regrets for having put the Socialist Government, and defined the lines along which that Government was forced to go if it did no wish to lose the Liberal support.

Winston Churchill, speaking at Liverpool, described the present Government as a vast monument of sham and humbug. He proposed not to bring division to the Conservative party, but to return to the arrangement by which it was reinforced with a Liberal wing co-operating in whatever might be found most useful in the national interest.

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’.