BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20287, 21 December 1927, Page 9

BRITISH PARLIAMENT

END OF THE SESSION. EXPECTED ON THURSDAY. (British Official Wireless.) (Press Association— Bj Telegraph—Oopynga: RUGBY, December 19. It is expected that Parliament will be prorogued on Thursday, and that the new session will open on February 7. Efforts will be made during the week to secure the passage of a number of minor Bills, but time has to be found in the House of Commons this week for debates on unemployment initiated by Labour, and on agriculture at the instance of the Liberals. It is also anticipated that the Prime Minister will make his promised statement on the future of the Ministry of Transport and the Department of Mines and Overseas Trade, which Mr Churchill’s Budget speech indicated were to be merged in other departments in the interests of economy.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN BRITAIN,

LABOUR MOTION DEFEATED.

LONDON, December 19. (Received Dec. 20, at 7 p.m.) In the House of Commons Mr T. Johnston (Dundee) moved the Labourites’ motion; “That the long-continued unemployment of 1,000,000 workers is of the gravest national concern, calling for a comprehensive national policy to stimulate production and relieve industry in necessitous areas of its exceptional burdens.”

Sir Arthur Stccl-Maitland (Minister of Labour), replying, said that he was ready to bet that unemployment would be down to 4 per cent, by 1932 or 3 per cent, by 1933. The motion was rejected by 256 to 102. —A. and N.Z. Cable.