Parliament's Week

The Commons--

P: Beheld, for the first time in 22 years, the apparition of two Sheriffs of the city of London, clad in scarlet robes, accompanied by the bewigged City Remembrancer, appealing at the bar of the House of Commons.

The Sheriffs appealed against the destruction of 52 churches in the city of London--nine built before the Great Fire, 32 designed by Sir Christopher Wren--which are about to be torn down under the Union of Benefices and Disposal of Churches Act.

Their appeal heard, registered, the Sheriffs observed their immemorial custom of presenting each doorkeeper of the House with a bottle of port wine.

P: Welcomed tolerantly Miss Margaret ("Our Maggie") Bondfield, onetime chairman of the Trades Union Congress when she was returned to the House of Commons by 18,866 Wallsend Laborite votes, as against 9,839 polled for a Conservative and 4,000 for a Liberal opponent.

The five other female M. P.'s are Viscountess Astor, the Duchess of Athol, Mrs. Hilton Philipson, Miss E. Wilkinson and Miss Susan Lawrence.

P: Read with disquiet an announcement by the International Miners' Federation, in convention at London last week, that $2,100,000 has been contributed by the Soviet government, to date, toward furtherance of the British Coal Strike.

P: Nodded approval as the Ministry of Health suppressed the Municipal Guardians of West Ham, famed constituency of John Joseph ("Jumping Jack") Jones, Laborite M. P., raucous boor. The Guardians of West Ham, ardent Laborites, had been paying "unemployment doles" to able-bodied men on a scale higher than their wages when employed. As a result the community is reported in debt for -L-2,000,000.

The Lords--

P: Heard, received from Premier Baldwin, assurances that the Government will take up the matter of "reforming prerogatives of the House of Lords"--restoring certain powers now in abeyance--" before the lifetime of the present Parliament expires" (1928).