GOVERNMENT DEFEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18680, 9 April 1924, Page 9

GOVERNMENT DEFEAT.

EVICTIONS BILL VOTE. A MINORITY OF NINE. SCENE IN THE COMMONS. PRIME MINISTER'S GLOOM. WILL NOT RESIGN OFFICE.

Br Telegraph Association—Copyright (Received 8.55 p.m.)' A. and 5.Z. LONDON. April 7. After a close and keen debate in the House of Commons on the second reading of the Government's Evictions Bill, which provided, inter alia, that a tenant, while unemployed, could not be evicted, the House divided. The bill was defeated bv 221 votes to 212. Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald made it quite ! clear that he does not contemplate re- i signing in consequence of the defeat. ' The Parliamentary correspondent of the ' "Daily Express says that no London theatre , could stage a scene like that which ! occurred in the crowded and excited Com- : mons after the division. The back bench ' Socialists, be says, blared like a thousand "loud-speakers." It was obvious from ! the beginning that the crash was bonnd j :o come. |

_ Mr. W. R. Pringle, Liberal member for i York, who saved the Government last j week by -raising a technical point in con- ' flection with the same measure, spoke for half an hour. He pointed out that : the clause as amended did not make it : incumbent on local authorities to pay i the rent of unemployed tenants who were threatened with eviction. Nor did it instruct County Courts to withhold evic- . tion orders if relief was obtained.

The speech of the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald. was an entire failure, declares the correspondent. It was prosy, indefinite, and entirely non-committal, Interruptions -were rained upon him every minute. He spun meaningless words like a spider spinning a web. The House's impatience increased as he proceeded. Mr. Stanley Baldwin, Leader of the Unionist Party, declared that Mr. MacDonald's explanations only made his ten fcrosity the more profound. Mr. H. H. Asquith, the Liberal leader, declared that only the Johnsonian phrase, ''inspissated gloom," could describe the members' mental condition, including thos'i on the Treasury benches. The Liberals divided into three camps. Forty of them, including Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, Sir J. Simon, Mr. T. J. Macnamara, Mr. Jan Macpherson, Sir E. Grigg, and Mr. C. F. G. Masterman, did not vote. About 40 others voted with the Government,' and 25 against it. The Unionists voted unitedly against ♦he Government. The Cabinet has not yet decided what it intends to do. The latest Parlimentary forecasts do not, however, anticipate that a further bill dealing with this question will be introduced before Easter.

ANOTHER ADVERSE VOTE.

MATTER OF WAR CHARGES. (H-ftceived 12.5 a.m.) Sun. LONDON. April 8. In the House of Commons the Government was again defeated by 207 votes to 170 on proposals to reverse the late Conservative Government's decision regarding the adjustment of certain war charges.