NOT THEIR PLACE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 92, 19 April 1930, Page 7

NOT THEIR PLACE

WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT OTHER NATIONS LAUGH COMMONS A FAMILY PARTY United Press Association—By Electric Tel«eraph—Copyright., (Received 19th April, "10 a.m.) LONDON, 18th April. A striking onslaught on the family character of the present House of Commons is made in a featured article in the "Daily Express" headed, "May Be Mother of Parliaments, But Must Not Be Family Party." The article refers to the maidea speeches of Miss Megan Lloyd George and the Prime Minister's son, Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald, upon whom a host of mothers,1- brothers, sisters, and mothers beamed from the galleries and from the floor of the House, jThe paper declares:— , . ' "Family relationship is all very well in the family-circle-, but the less we have them mixed up in the stern, business of the House of Commons, or, indeed, any Parliament, the better. The Assembly should consist of alert, even ruthless competitiveness and efficiency, which is unlikely to be engendered by the amiability of family ties. A certain amount of family tradition, of course, is inseparable in the Commons. This, within limits, is not undesirable. The old accepted idea was father and son in succession. Nobody could cavil at an occasional example, but with the arrival of women in the Commons relationship has taken strange turns. Soon we may have mothers and daughters, likewise sisters. One reason why the French run all over us at conferences is because they refuse to take seriously a nation which now admits women: •to Parliament, and even the Cabinet. This sort of thing is all right in Finland; and even America, but the .Continent does not. expect it from traditional Britain. Many may see ' nothing absurd in the idea of a mother and daughter, or a husband and'wife, sitting in Parliament, which is still the' capital of the Empire, with masculine problems like India and Egypt to solve, but millions of others do."