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Belittled Communist Gallacher: "There is a complete lack of confidence in the present monarch. . . . You have not only had the abdication of a monarch who had been presented as the last word in an Ideal Man, but you have now got a Monarch that no one is sure of at all. . . . His Majesty's Government are only concerned with profits, and so long as the King assisted them in keeping profits going they kept the King. . . . The members of this House are playing with themselves in thinking they can continue to fool the people of this country. . . . There is no other explanation for this Bill than that the Government do not expect the present Monarch to last out his time. Here we are discussing who is going to substitute for His Majesty—even before his Coronation has taken place!"
The House did not dignify Communist Gallacher by shouting him down, as it dignified Edward VIII's champion Winston Churchill during the Crisis (TIME, Dec. 14), but there were cries of "No! No!" last week and that fiery Irish peer, Earl Winterton, livid with fury, growled at Communist Gallacher: "Such suggestions as yours can only be the product of a disordered brain."
Not disordered is the brain of shaggy James Maxton, humorous near-communist (with a small "c") and most picturesque figure in the small Independent Labor Party. Smilingly he twitted His Majesty's Government for providing that Princess Elizabeth, 10, heir apparent to the Throne, shall come of age at 18. "If the duties to be performed are responsible duties, then the appropriate age is the age recognized in all other walks of life—the age of full manhood, of 21 or over," said Laborite Maxton.
"If on the other hand the duties are— as has been pointed out by the Home Secretary—merely of a purely automatic nature not requiring any maturity of judgment at all but merely the ability to write one's name in a fairly legible hand, then I should imagine that even the young heir to the throne just now, if she has attained ordinary educational advancement, is capable of this particular act." Such gentle fun sped the Regency Bill along to pass the House overwhelmingly 307 to 1, with Mr. Maxton not voting because he acted as a teller.
¶ All parties united in stormily denouncing the British Newspaper Proprietors' Association last week. During the months and years in which the story of Mrs. Simpson grew abroad, the docile N. P. A. muzzled itself under Government pressure and kept mum as long as possible, but recently its reporters and cameramen have "got completely out of hand"—in the House of Commons' opinion.
Conservative Sir Percy Kurd and Laborite Emanuel Shinwell last week were typical of British extremes which met to give horrible examples of journalistic prying and peeping into British lives, high, low and intermediate. The coroner in a gruesome North London accident case last week was quoted in the House as remarking of N. P. A. cameramen: "They showed scant regard for decencies in their treatment of the dying patient!" Closing the debate, Home Secretary Sir John Simon warmly assured M.P.'s that he will remonstrate with the N. P. A., drew hearty cheers from all quarters of the House.