(British Commonwealth of Nations)
With a cheering, enthusiastic crowd at his heels, Ramsay Macdonald, British Premier, walked from his home at No. 10 Downing Street to the House of Commons.
There, from the Treasury Bench, he delivered a speech—his first as head of His Majesty's Government.
The speech was unsensational and "vague," particularly in its treatment of important domestic issues—unemployment, housing, agriculture, taxation. It was more an expression of Labor's general attitude of mind than a concrete definition of policy.
Present in the leader's seat among the crowded opposition benches was ex-Premier Baldwin. After the speech both he and ex-Premier Asquith, Liberal leader, congratulated Mr. Macdonald. In general the attitude of the house was fair. "Give Labor a chance."
Some excerpts:
Initial sentences. "No Prime Minister has ever met the House of Commons under similar circumstances to mine. For the time being no party in the House has a majority. . . . I think we will have to think less about party than heretofore and to lay more and more emphasis upon the responsibility of individual members voting as responsible members of the House and not merely as party politicians."
On parliamentary "tricks." "I have a lively recollection of all sorts of ingenuities practiced by oppositions in order to spring a snap division upon the Government so that it might be turned out on a defeat. I have known bathrooms downstairs utilized, nor for legitimate purposes but for the illegitimate purpose of packing as many members surreptiously inside their doors as their physical limitations would allow. . . . I have seen this House practically empty when the bells began to ring and then turned into a riotous sort of market place by the inrush of members for the purpose of finding the Government napping and turning it out on a stupid issue. I am not going to go out on any such issue."
The immediate program. "Up to the end of March we shall have to ask the House to give up most of its time to financial business—that we have inherited from our predecessors—for supplementary estimates in the main. We shall place before the House those resolutions carried at the imperial and economic conference."
Treaties. "There are two important treaties that have been signed and have to be ratified. There is the treaty with Turkey signed at Lausanne [TIME, Aug. 6], and the more recent treaty which I am glad to say has just been signed between France and Spain regarding Tangier, [TIME, Dec. 31].
Housing. "The housing problem can only be solved when decent human homes are provided for most of the working classes of the country at rents which can be borne by the average income of those persons. . . . Provision for this has been made since the war by subsidies. We are going to continue that, and at present we shall continue it in relation to this problem of how we can build houses on the average for £500 and let them on the average for 9 shillings [$2], including rents and rates."