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12 JULY 1924

Herbert Asquith, addressing a Liberal campaign meeting at Norwich, found encouragement in the circumstance that opponents were not for the moment in good fighting trim. Of the Government he said that, while they had enjoyed almost unexampled tolerance and no lack of goodwill or co-operation, they had shown a singular incapacity for constructive statesmanship, and had relied mainly upon Liberals to mould their crude raw material into shape. After an advocacy of Proportional Representation, Mr Asquith referred to the Housing Bill and to Mr Wheatley’s “new theory of housing finance.” An attempt to popularise the fiction that house rents could be emptied of all charges for the replacement of capital was, he said, a reckless deception.

Proposals for a reorganisation of the coal mining industry and for the development of electrical energy on a big scale are contained in the report of a private inquiry, which was presided over by Mr Lloyd George.

Presiding at the centenary dinner in memory of Lord Kelvin, in London, the Earl of Balfour said Lord Kelvin pursued for years a great ideal. He hoped to bring together information on electricity, magnetism, the constitution of the atom, and the nature of ether, to show their inter-connection and to make them part of one great organic whole.

11 JULY 1924

On the report stage of the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Bill in the House of Lords, the Lord Chancellor stated that since the Committee stage further negotiations had taken place, and an agreement had been reached safeguarding the interests of the small heritors. The agreement was embodied in an amendment providing for redemption upon easy terms. With the adoption of the amendment and a number of others, all drafting amendments, the report stage was concluded.

Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, made a statement in the House of Commons on his visit to Paris.

The Prime Minister made a firm declaration of policy in the House of Commons with regard to the Sudan, and referred to the forthcoming discussions with Zaghlul Pasha.

Mr Snowden, speaking in London, expressed the hope that in the next effort to bring about peace and settlement to the Continent of Europe the right spirit would be brought into the deliberations. There must be a frank recognition of the reasons why previous attempts had failed.

The Government were defeated in Standing Committee A” on the Agricultural Wages Bill, when what was declared to be a vital amendment was carried by twenty-seven votes to seventeen.

In the Lewes by-election, Captain T. Beamish, Unionist candidate, was returned by a majority of 3172 over the Socialist nominee. The Liberal candidate was at the foot of the poll.

THE Standing Committee on Scottish Bills had before them the Public Health (Scotland) Bill, the main object of which is to enable public health authorities to assist necessitous sufferers from diabetes to obtain insulin treatment.

10 JULY 1924

Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, has returned to London after his conversations in Paris with Édouard Herriot, the French Premier, regarding the Allied Conference on the 16th inst. An agreement has been reached in regard to the joint Franco-British proposals to be submitted to the Conference. The proposals will take the form of a Franco-British Note, which is being forwarded to the other Allies.

A Paris telegram gives the terms of the Joint Note decided upon by the British and French Premiers.

In the House of Commons, the Lord Privy Seal, indicating the desire of the Government to save as much as possible of the Prevention of Eviction Bill, said that the Lords’ amendments would probably be accepted.

By 221 votes to 112, the House of Commons gave a second reading to the Lanarkshire Hydro-Electric Bill. Discussion also took place on report stage amendments to the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Bill.

During Tuesday’s all-night sitting of the Commons, one of the Government Whips, Mr. T. Kennedy, the member for Kirkcaldy, fainted in the lobby, and received medical treatment in the House, and afterwards at St. Thomas’s Hospital. Mr Kennedy’s indisposition occurred during a division on the Finance Bill, the Committee stage of which was completed by a tired House about six o’clock in the morning.

At the annual Conference of the National Union of Railwaymen at York, a resolution endorsing the action of the Executive Committee in placing upon the agenda of the forthcoming International Transport Workers’ Conference a resolution of protest against the general application of the terms of the Washington Hours Convention was unanimously adopted.

9 JULY 1924

Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, was cordially greeted on his arrival in Paris. The British and French Premiers, according to an official statement, resumed the conversations from the point where they were left off at the interview at Chequers.

The Bishop of Oxford’s Liquor Control Bill was rejected in the House of Lords, after further second reading discussion, by 166 votes to 50.

The Committee stage of the Finance Bill was continued in the House of Commons, and numerous amendments disposed of.

Replying to questions in Parliament, the Secretary for Scotland said the Corpus Christi procession at Carfin, Lanarkshire, was not prohibited on the instructions of the Lord Advocate. The procession last year attained dimensions which caused serious traffic difficulties, and the police authorities this year informed the priest responsible that if the pro- cession on the public roads were repeated the matter would be reported to the Crown authorities. Mr Buchanan was refused permission to move the adjournment of the House on the matter, the Speaker stating that the question was one for the local police.

Polling takes place to-day in the Lewes by- election. David Lloyd George, the former Prime Minister, in a letter to Mr Howard Williams, the Liberal candidate, refers to the broken pledges of the Socialists, and says that the Liberal party preaches what it believes in, and will practice what it preaches.

David Lloyd George, speaking in London, appealed for unity between the various parts of the Empire.

Calvin Coolidge jr, the sixteen-year- old son of the American President, has died of blood poisoning. King George has sent a message of sympathy to President Coolidge.