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¶Sorely vexed the Japanese Government by debating with Olympian superiority whether Great Britain's duty is to "intervene and mediate" between China and Japan.
"Most certainly our duty is clear," declared Baron Barnby, chairman of British industries' recent trade mission to Japan and Manchukuo. Also for intervention were two crusty British civil servants long accustomed to telling Orientals what is best—Baron Lamington, onetime Governor of Bombay, and the Earl Peel whilom Secretary of State for India. As cables flashed off their remarks to Tokyo, provoking sharp retorts (see p. 24), 'other peers rebutted with spirit.
"I prefer the real Government of Japan to the camouflage Government of China !" boomed the Duke of Atholl. "The best plan is to leave Japan alone to occupy Manchuria and Inner Mongolia."
"A few years ago when America created the puppet Republic of Panama," chimed in Baron Newton (no descendant of Sir Isaac), "nobody said a word."
The Commons:
¶ Voted $250,000 for official celebration of Their Majesties' Silver Jubilee after stringy-haired Scottish Laborite James Maxton, M.P. had hoarsely denounced "this costly carnival of monarchist propaganda!"
To Scotsmen, logical and thrifty, the costly Jubilee amid Depression makes no sense. Scotland's temper is such that George V has canceled as quietly as possible, his announced Jubilee visit to Edinburgh. In , Glasgow's poorer districts many streets are plastered with Communist slogans and to venture there there would would mean a chorus of "Down with the King"
Speaking quietly in the Commons last week for a group of Scottish proletarian M.P. s, Mr. Maxton said: "A very large proportion of the world manages to conduct its affairs reasonably well without maintaining an hereditary monarchy. My group does not propose to cast any votes which tend to perpetuate a monarchist institution."
Others who did not vote for the $250,000 Jubilee appropriation included Sir Stafford Cripps and militant Laborites who are grooming him for Prime Minister Voluntary censorship kept the vote off all news service wires.
¶Buzzed at authoritative rumors that His Majesty's Government have invited onetime Prime Minister David Lloyd George to confer with them on his proposal for a "British New Deal" (TIME, Dec. 24), nebulously vague until the Welshman recently reduced it to a secret memorandum at the Cabinet's request.
That the Lloyd George Deal has strongly appealed to Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald sufficiently appeared when his political henchman Baron Allen declared at Manchester: "It is surprising what a volume of popular support can be mobilized in favor of far reaching programs of this sort to cover, say, five years. It would be criminal if such an opportunity were cold-shouldered." In a nutshell the Lloyd George Deal is understood to be "public works and still more public works."