HISTORIC DAY IN COMMONS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17740, 29 March 1932, Page 10

HISTORIC DAY IN COMMONS

CHAMBERLAIN’S TRIUMPH

A SON’S TRIBUTE VICTORY OF TARIFF REFORM The sitting of the House of Commons on Thursday, February 4, 1932, will assuredly live in history, writes the Parliamentary correspondent of the lamdon Observer. Mr. Neville Chamberlain's speech on the Government’s tnril! proposals links the sitting with that memorable sitting of January 19, 1846, when Sir Robert Reel disclosed his scheme for the substitution of free imports for Protection, thus profoundly changing the trade and agricultural system of the country, hut the speech Sinks tlie two by a reversal of the policy of 85 years ago, and a now departure turning the face of the country towards Protection again. As if that was not drama enough the House also witnessed an episode unparalleled in Parliamentary annals—a leading Minister, Sir Herbert Samuel, Home Secretary, following tho Chancellor of the Exchequer, and making an unmitigated attack on the Government’s plans. Here again was a new departure —a suspension, if not an abolition, of the settled constitutional principle that if a Cabinet Minister is opposed io the Government’s policy lie must go out. or. if lie elects to stay in, lie must refrain from publicly expressing ids dissent. Of course, this novel decision of the Cabinet to “agree to di'or” is justified liv the exceptional all-part,v composition of Urn Government and the almost unprecedented economic state of Hie country, but it was an astonishing thing to see it in practice for the first time. A SENSITIVE HOUSE The House of Commons looked its very best on that memorable sitting, crowded as it was in every part, and lit up by a. soft, mellow radiance from its beautiful glass ceiling. On these occasions the House is sensitive and imaginative. Indeed, it is impossible for anyone at all attuned to the spirit of places not to he affected l>v the thought of the clash between conflicting reason and thought in political and economic controversies with which the oak panelled walls of the Chamber lias sq often reverberated. ITow cool and unflurriod Air. Neville Chamberlain looked as he rose to the table and waited yntil the loud cheers whicli greeted him had subsided. Tlis red dispatcli box, from which lie took the notes of his speech, had been his father’s wnen lie was Colonial Secretary. Tt bore signs of time and use. And how like Joseph Chamberlain—as T lemember him standing at tlie table—is the son ! The son has the same lithe frame, tlie same sharp features and black .hair, and when lie speaks the same clear incisiveness of voice. There is the same caro in dress; lint in that respect the likeness of the son to the father is incomplete. The orchid in the button-hole, which Joseph Chamberlain invariably wore on great Parliamentary occasions, is missing, and also the monocle, whicli I have seen the father retain in his eye without once dropping it during a speech of an hour's duration. A LUCID EXPOSITION It is not necessary for mo to give oven the briefest summary of Air. Neville Chamberlain's tariff''proposals. They are now known the world over. The speech lasted an hour and a quarter. As an effort of oratorical exposition it was perfect. So well was it delivered, and so inch] was it, in argument, that it was heard with ease m all parts of the Chamber. Not a single impatient erv of “Speak up !” (a familiar Parliamentary expression) was heard from any quarter. For the most part* Air. Chamberlain was in manner curiously impersonal and detached, considering the revolutionary change he was proposing in the country’s fiscal policy. The speech was like a judge’s traditionally impartial summing-up of the effect tin the country of the world’s financial and economic crisis. He put aside the personal and family triumph implicit in the situation. Ills filial devotion to his father’s political memory, and his reasoned support of economic views which it may be said lie has inherited, were' not obtruded until (lie end of the speech, when tlie reference was made in passages of moving eloquence. There is no doubt that Joseph Chamberlain was very much in the mind of members during his son’s speech. \s we know, the father’s fiscal reform movement was overwhelmingly rejected by the country. In his last words, bringing his campaign to an end in 1906, he said : “T look forward to the future with hope and confidence, and Others I doubt not, if not me, The issue of our toil shall sec

How little could Joseph Chamberlain have imagined when he spoke those words that his son Neville was destined, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to take the first, step towards the realisation of fiscal reform, supported by an enormous majority in the House of Commons. For it is a thing without record in Parliamentary history for the son of a statesman, as a statesman himself, to have inscribed on the Statute Book a policy for the advocacy of which his father went down in defeat. A PERSONAL NOTE

Air. Neville Chamberlain’s tribute to his father, delivered in a- subdued voice, with a kind of tremulous humility, gave the House tlie opportunity for which it had waited of paying homage to the memory of Joseph Chamberlain in an emotional hurst of cheering. The passages which will always have a place in records of Parliamentary eloquence are as follows:---

“Now I hope I may he excused if I tout'll one personal note. There can have been few occasions in all our long political history when the. son of a man who counted for something in his day and generation has been vouchsafed the privilege of setting the seal on the work which the father began, hut had perforce to leave unfinished. Nearly 29 years have passed since Joseph Chamberlain entered upon his great campaign in favor of Imperial Preference and Tariff Reform. More than 17 years have gone by since he died without having scon the fulfilment of his aims, and yet convinced that, if not exactly in his way, in some modified form his vision would eventually take shape. His work was not in vain, for time and tlie misfortunes <>r the country have brought <onviction to many who did not feel that they could agree with him then. I believe he would have found consolation for (lie bitterness of his disappointment if he could have foreseen that these proposals, which are 11m direct and legitimate descendants of his own conception, would l>e laid before the House of Commons which lie loved in the presence of one and by the lips of the other of his two immediate-successors by whom his name is carried on.”

Sir Austen Chamberlain, who sat in the corner seat of the third bench below the gangway —the bench from which his father when oat of office used to speak —came down to the Treasury Pencil and as if (on Full for words, silently shook hands with his brother.