BRITISH POLITICS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 12 June 1929, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS

LABOUR GOVERNMENT COMPLETION OP THE MINISTRY ! JUNIOR APPOINTMENTS ANNOUNCED (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, 11th June. The list of jurior Ministerial appointments is issued this evening. Dr. Dalton becomes Parliamentary Under-Secre-tary of the Foreign* Office. Apart from being a keen student of foreign politics, he has "considerable reputation as an economist.

Mr Arthur Ponsonby is appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Dominions. He was Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the Labour Government of 1924. Mr William Lunu becomes Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade in the Labour Administration of 1924. Mr Ben Turner becomes Parliamentary Secretary of the Mines Department of the Board of Trade. The Ministry of Mines was abolished as a separate entity by the late Conservative Government, matters appertaining to mines reverting to the Board of Trade. Considerable importance, however, is.attached by the new Labour Government to mines, and in entrusting the Secretaryship for Mines to Mr Turner, Mr MacDonald has chosen one of the most able trade union leaders. Mr ITurner is general president of the National Union of Textile Workers, and as chairman of the General Council of Trade Union Congress, has played a leading part in conferences with employers, headed by Lord Melehett, for peace in industry. _ Mr Amnion received the post of Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, which he held in the last Labour Administration.

Mr George Hall becomes Civil Lord of the Admiralty;, Dr. Addison, it is atated, has consented to fill the post of Under-Secre-tary to the Ministry of Agriculture at the special and urgent request of the Prime Minister, in order that ho may participate in promoting various agricultural schemes of the Government "in the preparation of which he has played a very active part. Dr. Addison is by profession a physician and surgeon. He was a Liberal member of Parliament from 1910 to 1922, was Minister of Munitions, and afterwards Minister in charge of Reconstruction during the war. He was first Minister of Health in Mr Lloyd George's Coalition Government from 1919 to 1921. He left the Liberal Party and was elected for Swindon as a Lab r ourite at the General 'Election. Miss Susan Lawrence becomes Parliamentary Secretry to the Ministry of Health. She has been an active member of the London County Council and Poplar Borough Council. Dr. Drummond Shiels becomes Parliamentary Under-Secretary- for India. Specially interested in dominion and colonial conditions, he was a member of the special commission on the Ceylon Constitution. Lord Russell receives office for the first time as Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministiy of Transport. Mr Pethick Lawrence becomes Financial . Secretary to the Treasury. He is an authority on financial matters, and Was ore of the most ardent supporters of women's suffrage in their militant campaign for a vote iust before the war. Lord dn la Warr becomes Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the War Office, and Mr Shinwell Financial Secretary. Mr Shinwell was Minister of Mines in.the last Labour Government. Other new Under-Secretaries are Mr F. Montague, Air Ministry; Mr W. R. iSmith, Board of Trade; Mr Morgan Jones, Board of Education; Mr Alfred Short, Home Office; Mr J. Lawson, Ministry of Labour. KNIGHTHOODS FOR MINISTERS (Australian Press Association.—United Service) ' J (Received 12th June, 11.25 a.m.) LONDON, llth June. The customary knighthoods have been conferred on the Attorney-General, Mr W. Jowitt, K.C., and the Solicitor-Gen-eral, Mr J. B. Melville, K.C.

UP TO DATE n

INTRODUCING THE CABINET BY A TALKING FILM 'British Official Wireless) RUGBY, 10th* June. Mr MacDonald, the new Prime Minister! used wireless broadcasting on Saturday night to issue a message to the Nation. He v employed another modern method to-day when he introduced his Cabinet to the public by means of a talking film, which was taken in the garden of No. 10 Downing Street before the meeting of Cabinet. / Mr MacDonald, with his colleagues around him, spoke into the microphone and introduced his colleagues one by one. He said: "May I introduce to you the members of'the Cabinet, who have been chosen for very hard work, and because I believe the nation fully believes they are perfectly competent to perform it. First of all "there is my old friend Mr Snowden, who is Chancellor. Then there is Mr Henderson, Foreign Secretary, and Mr Clynes, the Home Secretary. Lord Parmoor ./returns to his place as Lord President of the Council. Mr Shaw has gone to the War Office to look after our great interests there, and Mr Noel Buxton is in charge of Agriculture. Mr Webb is to look after the Dominions and Colonies. Then there is behind me Mr Greenwood, who has gone to the Ministry of Health. Sir C. P. Trevelyan goes back to the Board of Education, but Mr Graham comes now to the Board of Trade from the Treasury. -Mr Thomas has very broad shoulders, and I can assure you he is going to have a very big burden put upon them. Ho is going to look after the work we are doing for unemployment, and I feel sure the whole nation wishes him most heartily success. Mr Alexander has come from the Board of Trade to the Admiralty and I am sure he will show his great capacity at the Admiralty, as he did at the Board of Trade. Mr Adamson is a Scotsman, and he is going to preside over the office he filled with so much success in 1924 (Secretary of State for Scotland). Captain Wedgwood Benn is one of the young men who has now a task of the verygreatest importance. He is to be Secretary for India, and we wish him well in the very trying time he will have to face. Then there is our old friend Mr George Lansbury, who is the first Commissioner of Works, and who is to take a hand in the solution, of the unemployment problem, and nobody lias had greater experience of local government. Last but most unique, is our old friend Miss Margaret Bondfield.

She is the first woman who has been admitted to the Privy Council, and she is now the Right Hon. Margaret Bondfield. She is also the first woman to have taken a seat in the Cabinet."

WOMAN PRIVY COUNCILLOR

A DRESS PROBLEM United Service * LONDON, 11th June. Miss Bondfield, as the first woman Privy Councillor, can only 'assert her rights to equal recognition with men if she goes to the King’s fevees in velvet knee breeches and cocked hat. “That,” says the “Daily News,” is at present the only solution of the problem which her appointment creates.” Responsible officials are hoping that the occasion will not arise when they will have to tell Miss Bondfield that she may have entered the Cabinet but that levees are such a male jirovince that she can only attend in male guise as the levee dress is the only costume recognised. On the other hand, Mr Austin Hertsiet, air official of the Lord Chamberlain’s office arid a leading authority on court dregs and the author of a textbook jthereon, says that Miss Bondfield when attending court functions- would wear woman’s usual court dress, as there is no ruling regarding the unprecedented question of a woman Privy Councillor’s uniform. EIGHT HOURS CONVENTION (Australian Press Association) GENEVA, 10th June. Mr MacDonald sent a letter to the British delegation foreshadowing the early British ratification of the Eight Hours Convention. ' United Service (Received 12th June, 11.45 a.m.) ■ LONDON, 11th June. , Tho “Evening News” states regarding the eight hour ratification, that about 90 per cent, of industrial workers in Britain are on an B v hour basis or less, so that the application of the convention here will not make a great difference.

LIBERAL PARTY ATTITUDE TOWARDS GOVERN* MENT (Received 12th June, 10.25 a.m.) LONDON, Uth June. Indicating the Liberal attitude to the MacDonald Government, Sir Herbert Samuel, in a v letter (to Mr Robert Bernay, the Liberal candidate for Rugby, ■ says : —“The Liberal Party at the General Election urged the country to end Conservatism, also not to consent to rash Socialistic experiments. The nation had done both these things. Only through the existence of the Liberal Party and its effective parliamentary representation has it been possible to achieve both simultaneously, five million Liberal votes, enabling the nation to reject both Socialism and Toryism. The present Government has full opportunity for its measures which the House of Commons is likely to receive favourably, but if the Government adopts an immoderate policy the Liberal Party must be there, and ready.”