PEERS INSIST

Southland Times, Issue 21274, 20 December 1930, Page 7

PEERS INSIST

DYESTUFFS ACT AMENDMENT ACCEPTED BY GOVERNMENT NO OTHER COURSE OPEN (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, December 18. The House of Lords insisted without a division upon its amendment to the Dyestuffs Act which the House of Commons rejected. In the House of Commons the President of the Board of Trade, Mr William Graham, announced that the Government had no other course but to accept the decision of the House of Lords regarding the Dyestuffs Act, otherwise the Rent Restrictions Act and legislation affecting miners’ wages and other Acts of Parliament would be lost. Moreover, the Government’s majority in the House of Commons yesterday was narrow. He added; “There is a temptation to enter upon a discussion regarding the relations of the two Houses, but we ourselves and the electorate outside will form our own judgments.” (Loud Ministerial cheers.). Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister (Conservative) replying, said the Opposition was only too anxious to test the feeling of the electorate on the matter, but he understood that a general election in the near future had been described elsewhere as political suicide from the standpoint of the Labour Party. (Opposition cheers).

A desultory discussion regarding the powers of the House of Lords followed, in which some Labour members accused Imperial Chemical Industries and kindred firms of corrupting political life. Conservatives hotly denied the insinuation. The Lords’ amendment was agreed to without a division.