the effect of absorbing much unskilled labour. In addition, a further programme of arterial roads was being considered.

The late Government had authorised 30,000,000l. for loans to local authorities. Of that sum 23,000,000l. had been sanctioned. The Unemployment Grants Committee was to be authorised to revert to the system of making grants of 60 per cent. of the wages bill, and a further 600,000l. was being allocated. That would enable additional work to the extent of 2,000,000l. being put in hand, and it was work of such a character as could be started without any preliminary delay.

Turning to agriculture, he pointed out that the sum of 300,000l. with a corresponding grant for Scotland which was provisionally allowed by the late Government, had been exhausted in connexion with land drainage and improved water supply schemes, etc. It was therefore proposed to make a further grant of 150,000l. with a corresponding grant for Scotland. It was estimated that this additional grant would enable twenty weeks' work to be provided for a further 6,000 men. A further grant of 100,000l. was expected to give work for another 2,000 men for twenty to twenty-five weeks. The sum of 375,000l. was to be allotted to the Office of Works to enable arrears of work to be overtaken. This was anticipated to provide employment for 3,500 men over a period of twenty weeks. An acceleration of Post Office work would be assisted by a grant of 1,000,000l.

The Government would renew the Trade Facilities Act for twelve months, and the amount of capital which might be guaranteed was to be increased from 25,000,0007, to 50,000,000l. It was proposed that the existing limits of 26,000,000l. of export credits should be extended if it was found necessary. In regard to Unemployment Insurance, a new special period, which started at the beginning of November, would continue until the following July. Benefit might be drawn for at least twelve weeks, but four-fifths of those now taking benefit would be eligible for the full twenty-two weeks' benefit during the period, during which time 35,000,000l. might be paid out. The Minister then informed the House of the outcome of the consultations between the Prime Minister and the Directors of the Railway Companies. The latter were to expedite their programmes of development, and a number of schemes had already been notified. There were also to be fresh developments in connexion with electricity supply schemes. A number of new power stations, or extensions of existing ones, were to be proceeded with to the total amount of 10,000,0007.

The opinion of the Labour Party on these schemes was expressed by Mr. Patrick Hastings, K.C., who said that they would be considered pitifully inadequate. He dwelt upon the growing feeling of intense bitterness in the country at the long period during which the tragedy of unemployment had continued. The proceedings of Governments in the past, he contended, had

been based upon a fallacy; they had not realised that the problem was economic and not political.

Sir Alfred Mond, in reply, asked why, if unemployment was due to the National Debt, there was no unemployment in France where the National Debt was greater. The cause of unemployment, he said, was that there was not the surplus capital abroad from which we could draw orders for our export trade. As regards out-of-work pay, he made the suggestion that men who had drawn the dole should assign it to an employer on condition that they were given a job at Trade Union rates. It was in the direction of Empire development that Sir Alfred Mond looked for improvement, and he thought that our national credit might be used more boldly in this connexion than it had hitherto been. He advocated that credit should be pledged to the extent of 100,000,000l. for this purpose.

The debate was continued on December 1, when Mr. Philip Snowden, dealing with the internal aspect of the problem, suggested that every firm should put to reserve each year a proportion of its profits, which could be used to maintain wages and provide employment during periods of exceptional depression. As regards the land, he insisted that the deterioration of the agricultural population was not merely a national weakness and a national folly, but a national scandal. The State, in conjunction with the County Councils, should devote itself to extensive production, and the principle of co-operation should be more extensively applied. Bound up with the question of agriculture and industry generally was the development of our means of transport. His demand was that the expenditure should be reproductive. Transport schemes, for instance, would bring an immediate or early return, and so would housing. There was no trade in the country that would not be stimulated by the building of more houses, and he viewed it as a disgrace that, with an acute shortage of houses, there should be 100,000 men out of work in the building trade. He traced the present situation to the failure to establish peace in Europe. Reparations, he said, were twice cursed; they cursed those who paid them and those who received them. We might frankly abandon the idea of getting reparations from Germany; if Germany could pay, it would not be to our advantage that she should pay.

Major Astor then said that, while no one would grudge the money which was necessary to maintain the unemployed worker at the present time, it was due both to the unemployed and the taxpayer that every pound so spent attained its full value and was properly distributed. It would be a betrayal of the interests of both if a sum were spent on two men which, by better organisation, might maintain three. He asked, therefore, if the Government could not consider the question of calling together representatives of the bodies who were concerned in

out-door relief, with a view to forming a central authority equipped with power to deal with the situation.

Mr. Asquith referred to the scheme of the Government as a "melancholy instalment." Until international trade, including markets and currencies, he said, was put on a stable foundation, we should continue to be, of all the nations of the world, the chief sufferers. The last four years, from an economic point of view, had been a period of progressive unsettlement. He expressed the hope that the Government would not be trammelled by the fetters of the Balfour Note, which he described as the most unhappy diplomatic adventure of the last four years.

The Prime Minister said it did seem to him a curious result of the war, for which we had sacrificed so much, that we should be the only one of the nations that should pay an indemnity. The Government would try to carry out what had been the universal practice of the British Empire, that when war was over we should keep peace with our enemies. He traversed the arguments of the Labour Party with regard to the land, and denied that the Government wanted low wages. He said that it was an admitted fact that the money taken by the Excess Profits Duty was the reason why the industries of the country were unable to expand, because they had not got the money or the credit. What was wanted, he said, to restore trade was confidence, and one of the conditions necessary for an improvement was to get the idea into the business men of the country that there were not going to be any surprises, and in this sense he believed the new Government would help. They all desired to see Europe on her feet again, but nothing could be worse for trade than to give it the impression that there could be no improvement until Europe had been put right. He said that he was not afraid of the little inflation which would be caused by advancing money for work in this country, the payment for which would be extended over a long period, and in that kind of measure lay the only real hope of getting out of the present terrible position.

In the division which ensued the Government vote was 303 and the Opposition vote 172, but since the amendment included the National Liberals in the scope of its censure, these were obliged to support the Government. Thirty-four of them went into the division lobby, and the Government majority was 131. If the National Liberals had voted against the Government the majority would have been 63.

The position in the Near East remained serious during November, and on November 8 Lord Curzon, Minister for Foreign Affairs, made a statement as to the foreign policy of the new Government. He said that a Prime Minister of the peculiar gifts and temperament of Mr. Lloyd George must exercise an unusual and illegitimate influence upon foreign affairs. Mr. Bonar Law had decided that the work of the

Foreign Office should be done by the Department itself subject to the control of the Cabinet and the personal supervision of the Prime Minister. If foreign affairs were to be above and outside Party, as Lord Grey had suggested and hoped, the Foreign Minister should remember that he was speaking, not for a Party or for a section, but for the country as a whole. He had tried to remember that since he had been Foreign Minister. The foreign policy of Great Britain was no longer the foreign policy of this country alone, but was the foreign policy of the British Empire. The cardinal principle was that peace could only be recovered by the common action of the principal Allies who achieved victory in the war. Such questions as reparations and the Near East could only be settled if Great Britain, France and Italy acted loyally towards and with each other. In the continued co-operation of Great Britain and France lay the best guarantee and the security and stability of both. position in the Near East constituted the most definite menace to the peace of the world. The pretentions of the Nationalist Turks could not be tolerated. They were an affront to the Allies and a challenge to Europe. There was absolute accord between the Allied Generals and High Commissioners on the spot. He trusted that this unity, which had been ratified by the respective Governments, would be maintained. If it was broken we should not be able to support the burden alone.

The

In Ireland the event which attracted most attention during November was the capture of Erskine Childers who, ever since the peace negotiations in London in 1921, had been one of the most prominent and subtle opponents of the Free State. When the Republicans decided to take up arms against the State he joined their army as a Staff Captain, but it was generally known that he had occupied a far more important position in the Republican Councils of War. When captured, he was found to have in his possession an automatic pistol; a very serious infringement of the Army Regulations, for which he was promptly put on his trial before a Military Court in Dublin. On the first day of his trial his Counsel withdrew. They stated that Childers did not recognise the legality of the Provisional Government, nor, therefore, the legality of the Court before which he was brought. He recognised only the authority of the Irish Republican Government and Army. He had been taken prisoner of war, he was an officer of the Irish Republican Army, and he claimed that if he were detained at all by an Army whose authority he repudiated, he should receive the treatment of a prisoner of war.

The Military Court sentenced him to death, but efforts were still made by his friends to save his life. The Counsel who had retired from his case applied before the Master of the Rolls for writs of Habeas Corpus both in the case of Erskine Childers and in that of eight other men who had been tried at the same time. After several days occupied with legal arguments,

however, the applications were refused, and on November 24 Childers was executed, fourteen hours after the failure of his Counsel to secure a reprieve. His death disembarrassed the cause of Irish settlement of one of its ablest and most relentless enemies. Childers had to a great extent supplied the brains of the insurrection movement, and had lost no opportunity of trying to defeat the Treaty when it was being discussed by the Dail.

The Bill to set up the Constitution of the Irish Free State came before the House of Commons for second reading on November 28. Its preamble, like the preamble of the Act passed by the Provisional Parliament of the Free State, based the Constitution on the Treaty of December, 1921, between Great Britain and Ireland. The first clause of the Bill declared the Constitution adopted by the Provisional Parliament to be the Constitution of the Irish Free State. Its adoption was to be announced not later than December 6 by Royal Proclamation, and the Constitution was to come into operation on the issue of such Proclamation. The Constitution provided for the continuance, within the Irish Free State, of existing taxation in respect of the current financial year. Clause 2 of the Bill made a corresponding provision with respect to taxation within the rest of the United Kingdom. It was further provided that, during the current financial year, goods transported from or to the Irish Free State, to or from any other part of the United Kingdom, should not be treated as goods imported or exported. These financial arrangements might be continued for a further period. There was a saving clause reserving to the Parliament of Great Britain the power to make laws affecting the Irish Free State in any case where, in accordance with constitutional practice, Parliament would make laws affecting other selfgoverning Dominions. There were two schedules to the Bill, the first of which consisted of the Constitution of the Irish Free State in the form in which it was passed by the Provisional Parliament [see below, Public Documents], and the second of which contained the articles of agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland [see ANNUAL REGISTER, 1921, p. 86].

Mr. Bonar Law also introduced into the House of Commons the Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Bill. The Government of Northern Ireland had, it will be remembered, the right to decide within one month of the ratification of the Free State Constitution, whether Northern Ireland should be part of the Free State or should continue to govern itself according to the provisions of the 1920 Act. The Bill provided that if the North declined to enter the Free State, as indeed was certain to happen, there should be a Governor of Northern Ireland with a salary of 8,000l. A Privy Council of Northern Ireland would be established, and there would also be a separate Great Seal. The contribution from Northern Ireland towards Imperial liabilities and expenditure was to remain at 7,920,000l., subject to periodical adjustment by a Joint Exchequer Board.