A FAMILY CIRCLE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17238, 19 April 1930, Page 5

A FAMILY CIRCLE

THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT A TRENCHANT CRITIC

WOMEN AND .MEN'S PROBLEMS

(Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Received April 19, 11 a.m.) LONDON, April 18.

A striking onslaught on the family character of the present House of Commons is made in a featured article in the Daily Express headed: "It may be the mother of Parliaments, but il must not be a family party."

The article refers to the maiden speeches of Miss Megan Lloyd (ieorge and the Prime Minister's son, upon whom a host of fathers, brothers, sisters, and mothers beamed from the galleries and from the floor of the House

"It declared: "Family relationship is all very well in the family circle, but the less we have it 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 he engendered by the amicability of family ties. A certain amount of family tradition, of course, is inseparable from the House, ot Commons. This, within limits, is not undesirable. The old accepted idea was lather and sou in succession. Nobodycould cavil at an occasional example, but with the arrival of women in the House of Commons the relationship has taken strange turns, and we may soon 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 to Cabinet. This sort of thing is all ,right in Finland, and even in America, but the Continent does not expect it from traditional Britain. _ Many may see nothing absurd in the idea_ of mother and daughter, husband and wife. sitting in a. Parliament which is still the capital' o; the Empire, with masculine problems like Tndia. and Egypt to solve, but millions of others do."