struction, making a total of 17,383 houses either completed or under construction by local authorities for the purpose of letting; whereas, taking into account the annual wants arising from depreciation of property and growth of population, something like 100,000 new houses would be required annually to prevent the shortage from increasing. Housing conditions. to-day were for the people who lived in the worst conditions considerably worse than they were twelve months ago. It was necessary for the State to take the matter in hand because no one in private enterprise would build working-class houses to let on any terms. His proposal therefore was to make a fifteen-year agreement with the building industry for an annual average production of some 150,000 or more houses. To finance this project he required an annual subsidy of 91. per house-127. 10s. in certain agricultural areas-for forty years, the amount to be revised every three years for houses still to be built. The annual State expenditure at the peak he calculated at 34,000,0001.

Mr. Wheatley's proposals were subjected to searching criticism both by Conservative and Liberal speakers. The chief obstacle to the production of houses, it was pointed out, was not want of money but dearth of skilled labour. There were for instance only half as many bricklayers as before the Nevertheless the financial resolution was allowed to pass without a division, with the addition of a Liberal amendment providing that contributions might be withheld "in the absence of adequate arrangements for the necessary increase in the supply of labour and materials at reasonable prices.' As a pendant to his Housing measure, Mr. Wheatley also introduced a bill to prevent excessive charges for building materials, but this made no further progress during his term of office.

About this time developments in Ireland compelled the Government much against its will to intervene in the internal affairs of that country. Although nearly two years had passed since the ratification of the Irish Treaty, the boundary between the two States in the country had not yet been definitely settled. On April 26 the Free State Government informed the British Government that it saw no hope of coming to an amicable agreement with Ulster on the matter, and asked that, in accordance with Art. 12 of the Treaty (see ANNUAL REGISTER, 1921, p. 87), a Boundary Commission should be established, the decision of which should be final. On April 29 the British Government informed the Government of Ulster that it was taking steps to find a Chairman for the Commission, and asked them to appoint their representative. On May 10 the Governor replied that his Minister respectfully declined to appoint a representative. The Government thereupon took steps to ascertain what were the exact legal and constitutional powers which it was bound to exercise under the Treaty. At the same time Mr. MacDonald made a further effort to secure an amicable

agreement by inviting the Premiers of Southern and Northern Ireland, Mr. Cosgrave and Sir James Craig, to discuss the matter with him personally. The interview took place at Chequers on May 31, but led to no definite result. On June 4 the Prime Minister explained the position fully in the House of Commons, and the next day announced that he had secured the services of Mr. Feetham, a judge of the Supreme Court in South Africa, to act as Chairman of the Commission.

On June 23, and again on June 26, the Colonial Secretary, in answer to questions, stated that the Irish Free State Government had applied to send a separate representative to Washington, and that the British Government had assented to the proposal. He said that this request was clearly within Art. 2 of the Irish Treaty, and the Government had no hesitation in acceding to it, in the same way that the Government of the day had agreed to a similar application from Canada in 1920. In the House of Lords the action of the Government was strongly criticised by Lord Selborne and Lord Curzon, who pointed out that Canada had not taken advantage of the privilege accorded to her, and that the Prime Ministers of the other Dominions had at the Imperial Conference objected to such action. Lord Haldane replied that it was impossible to govern the Dominions otherwise than in accordance with their own will and their own wishes. The unity of the Empire was kept on a basis of freedom, and if Australia and New Zealand chose to ask for diplomatic representation at Washington, he could see no way of refusing them.

In a debate on the working of the Empire Settlement Act raised by a Unionist member on May 28, Mr. Lunn stated that up to March 31, 55,000 persons had been settled in the Dominions under the Act. He admitted that the progress made was disappointingly slow in view of the hopes which had been entertained at the passing of the Act, but he believed that by means of more generous financial arrangements with the Dominions, particularly Australia, it would be possible to quicken the rate considerably. He mentioned that the demand for assisted passages overseas was much greater than could be met, not because the Government had not the money-they had only spent 452,000l. out of the 4,500,000l. allowed by the Act-but because the Dominions were not prepared to absorb settlers without capital. A return issued soon after by the Board of Trade showed that unassisted emigration to the United States, chiefly of skilled workmen in depressed trades, was taking place on a considerable scale.

At the end of May Sir Percy Cox, on behalf of Great Britain, opened negotiations with Turkish representatives at Constantinople over the question of Mosul. Within a week the negotiations broke down, and the Government found itself in a quandary because, owing to the non-ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turks refused to refer the matter to the League of Nations, as stipulated in the Treaty. The delay

in ratifying the Treaty had been caused by the action of Canada, which was withholding assent on the ground that it had not been properly represented at the negotiations. The opponents of the Treaty sought to make capital against it out of the supposed slight to which Canada had been subjected, and just before the Whitsuntide recess (June 6) forced a debate on the subject in the House of Commons. By that time, however, the Prime Minister was able to announce that Canada had acquiesced in the Treaty. He took occasion, however, to utter a grave note of warning on the constitutional question that had been raised by Canada's action, of the precise status of the Dominions in the field of treaty making and foreign policy. He pointed out that the wording of the resolutions of the last Imperial Conference on the subject was not watertight or definite, and required to be supplemented. He expressed a hope that the matter would be explored by a special sub-committee of the Imperial Conference. It was important, he said, that while practising consultation whenever possible, they should safeguard the power of rapid decision. Unfortunately the Chanak telegrams had caused a great change of mind in the Dominions, destroying the confidence which they had formerly reposed in the mother-country, and this called for the creation of new machinery. He had no proposals to make at present, but the Government were watching the matter, and he might submit proposals later on.

On June 5 and for several days following the population of London, for the third time in five months, was seriously inconvenienced by a stoppage in the city's communications. The arm affected was the tube railways, the service on which was dislocated by a strike of railway shopmen. The Government

was loudly called on to intervene, but declared itself to be powerless in the matter because the strike was entirely unofficial and there was no authorised body with which it could negotiate. The chief object of the unofficial Strike Committee was to get itself co-opted by the Executive of the N.U.R., and to force that body to support the strike. While condemned by the great mass of the public, it was warmly supported by the small Communist Press of Great Britain, which saw in the strike a triumph for its own propaganda. The joy of the Communists was, however, short-lived. Both the Union and the employers stedfastly refused to recognise the Strike Committee, and within a week most of the men had returned to work.

On June 6 Parliament adjourned for ten days for the Whitsuntide recess. The interval was utilised by the Liberals to carry on an intensive campaign in the constituencies with the object of making known to the electorate the good work which the party had accomplished in Parliament under the present administration in the cause of progress. There was in the Liberal camp a not unjustifiable desire that a so-called Socialist Government should not be allowed to claim all the credit for

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legislation which followed Liberal lines and bore little or no trace of Socialism, and the time seemed to be ripe for proving that Liberals, and not Labour were the true party of progress. The chief Liberal spokesman was Mr. Lloyd George. At a great meeting at Llandridnod Wells, at which he incidentally restored unity to Welsh Liberalism, he defined Liberal policy as opposition to monopoly, whether of the old vested interests or of the Trade Unions. At the same time, however, Sir John Simon was placing disarmament in the forefront of the Liberal programme, and insisting on the futility of all social reforms until this issue had been settled. Mr. Asquith, meanwhile, in dignified aloofness, allowed his lieutenants to hold the field. Lacking effective guidance the Liberal Party failed to improve its position in the country, and found little encouragement there to try the hazard of a General Election. It remained, however, united, and continued for the rest of the Session to exercise a dominating influence on Parliament's legislative activities.

On June 14 the first exhibition took place at the Stadium at Wembley of the "Rodeo" performance of Canadian cowboys and cowgirls. For some weeks previously an excited controversy had been carried on in the Press as to whether steerroping and other parts of the performance did not involve cruelty to animals. At the very first performance one of the steers had the misfortune to break its leg, and the large crowd present broke out into angry cries of protest. The steer-roping competition was thereafter held in private, but as accidents continued to happen it was discontinued after a week, not, however, until the organiser had been served with a summons by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. After hearing the case the Court exonerated the organiser.

No sooner had Parliament resumed after the Whitsuntide recess (June 16) than the Liberal Party exhibited itself in the rôle which Mr. Lloyd George had selected for it, as the protector of the public from monopoly. The first matter considered by the Commons was the Bill for the Regulation of London Traffic, introduced in consequence of the bus strike in March. This Bill had been inherited by the Labour Government from the Conservatives, and in the eyes of many Liberal and Labour members threatened to create a monopoly in the passenger traffic of London. A Liberal member accordingly moved a new clause designed as a safeguard against this danger. The Government Whips were put on against it, but as the Conservatives abstained. from voting, it was carried by a majority of 63, many Labour members voting with the Liberals. On June 26 the Government was again defeated by 27 votes, in trying to keep out a Liberal amendment.

The Commons immediately afterwards turned their attention to the Finance Bill. The Conservatives determined to test the feeling of the House on Imperial Preference, and Mr. Baldwin tabled a series of ten resolutions embodying the fiscal proposals

which he had promised the Dominion Premiers at the Imperial Conference in October to lay before Parliament. The first of these was simply "that dried fruits now subject to duty be duty free if of Empire origin;" the next three, relating to tobacco, wine, and sugar, merely extended existing preferences; while the others, dealing with fruit, honey, and canned fish, were undisguisedly Protectionist. They were the subject of a full-dress debate in the Commons lasting over two days, June 17 and 18. In order to secure the unbiased opinion of the House, the Government took off its Whips, but early announced its own intention of voting solidly against the resolutions.

Mr. Baldwin's speech in favour of the resolutions, delivered on the second day, was remarkable chiefly for an ingenious attempt to persuade his opponents that the first four, and especially the first, did not conflict with the principle of Free Trade. He further sought to recommend them by saying that Imperial Preference had not been an issue at the General Election, and that if the resolutions were rejected the future of the whole Empire would be gravely imperilled. Mr. Asquith retorted that such an idea showed a strange conception of the stability of the Empire and the foundations on which it rested, and he asserted emphatically, from his own experience, that the country's condemnation of Protection at the Election included these Preference proposals. The Protectionist danger which lurked under the innocent wording of the first four resolutions was ruthlessly exposed, not only by Mr. Asquith and Sir John Simon, but also by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Nevertheless a number of Liberal and Labour speakers thought them worthy of acceptance on one ground or other, and the voting in the end was surprisingly close, the first resolution being defeated by 6 votes only, and the next three by 20 or under. Mr. Lloyd George was among those who paired in their favour.

In introducing the vote for the Board of Trade on June 19, Mr. Sidney Webb, the President of the Board, stated that trade conditions were more promising than at the same time last year. During May exports, which had averaged between 63,000,0001. and 64,000,000l. per month during 1923, amounted to 70,000,0007. and the volume of imports was greater than in any month since 1920, the increase being largely in raw material, particularly cotton and wool. He considered this a hopeful sign, but refrained from further prophecy. Mr. Lloyd George thought that there was not yet any ground for optimism in regard to trade prospects, and he expressed apprehension as to what would happen if the Dawes Report was put into operation and Germany was furnished with credits for procuring raw materials. He called for a full and impartial inquiry by the Board of Trade into the whole trade position. Mr. Webb informed him that the Government had the matter in hand, and he hoped soon to announce the scope and personnel of the Committee which