LABOUR CABINET TROUBLES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18818, 5 March 1931, Page 9

LABOUR CABINET TROUBLES.

Resignation of Minister. KING APPROVES OF SUCCESSOR. British Official Wireless RUGBY. March 3. The King has approved the appointment of Mr H. B. Lees-Smith, Post-master-General, to be President of the Board of Education, and Major C. R. Attlee, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to be Postmaster- General. The changes were rendered necessary by the resignation of Sir Charles Trevelyan (President of the Board of Education) who was also Minister of Education in the last Labour Administration, was the author of the Education Bill, which sought to raise the school-leaving age from 14 to 15 years. The Bill, which underwent considerable amendment in the House or Commons, was recently defeated in the House of Lords. At a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Sir Charles Trevelyan explained the reasons for resigning from the Government. He later announced that he would not make a personal statement in the House of Commons. ATTACK ON TRADES DISPUTE BILL. GOVERNMENT WITHDRAWS MEASURE. British. Official Wireless RUGBY, March 3. Mr Macdonald described the recent amendment to the Trades Disputes Bill as entirely unacceptable. The Attorney-General later announced that the Government had decided to withdraw the Bill. Parties Examine Situation. The Liberal and Labour Parties met separately to consider the position caused by the amendment to the Trades Disputes Bill. Mr Macdonald told the Labourites that the amendment was quite unacceptable. Mr H. Hayday, on behalf of the Trades Union Council, recommended dropping the Bill. Later the Attorney-General (Sir William Jowitt), at a meeting of the Standing Committee, moved the withdrawal of the Bill, declaring that the amendment made the union position more difficult than it had been for half a century. Sir Kingsley Wood expressed the opinion that the withdrawal was really due to the T. U. C. because it saw that the amendment effectually took away the use of the general strike. Dr. E. L. Burgin described Sir W. Jowitt’s reason for withdrawal as a mockery and a sham. The Liberals’ constructive amendment had not been considered on its merits. The withdrawal motion was carried without a division. ELECTORAL REFORM. LABOUR PARTY’S PROPOSALS SUBMITTED. British. Official Wireless RUGBY, March 3. Mr Macdonald, in the House of Commons, proposed a discussion on the Electoral Reform Bill, embodying the principle of the alternative vote in parliamentary elections. Mr Baldwin resisted, on the ground that the proposed time table involved limiting the discussion by a closure motion, which was undesirable in respect to such a measure. Mr Macdonald’s motion was carried.

Sir Charles Trevelyan was born into a landed family and trained for politics almost from birth. Politics, of course, meant Liberalism, for his father, Sir George Otto Trevelyan, the historian of the American Revolution w’as biographer of his uncle Lord Macaulay, and a colleague of Gladstone. Sir Charlqs was born sixty years ago, went tp Harrow and Trinity, and became private secretary to Lord Crewe as soon as his Cambridge life was over. Extended foreign travel followed, and in 1899 he entered Parliament as member for the Elland Division. In 1908 he became mentary Secretary to the Board of Education, but he was never an “official” Liberal, and he watched Grey’s foreign policy with anxiety. A convinced pacificist, he followed Lord Morley and John Burns, and resigned at the outbreak of war. He was one of the littl? band that founded the Union of Democratic Control in 1914. hoping for public control of foreign policy and the end of “secret diplomacy.” In 1918 he joined the Independent Labour Party. After four years out of the House of Commons h 3 returned in 1922; in 1924 he became the first Labour President of the Board of Education, and with the second Labour Administration he again took up the post. He succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1928. In 1896 he visited New Zealand in the course of a world tour.

Mr Hastings Bertrand Lees-Smith, M.A., D.Sc., has been PostmasterGeneral since 1929. He has represented Eteighley Division of Yorkshire from 1922-23, and since 1921. He was born in India in 1878. He was educated for the Army and obtained a cadetship at the Royal Military Academy in L 895, but resigned this and went to Quin’s College, Oxford, where he graduated MA. He has been associated with Ruskin College, Oxford, from its foundation in 1899. and was chairman of the executive committee from 1907 to 1909. He was a member of the Liberal Party, representing Northampton from 1910 to 1918. In the latter yea.r he contested the Don Valley Division of Yorkshire as an Independent Radical snd joined the Labour Party the next year. He is the author of a number of books dealing with India and constitutional matters. Major Celemenfc Richard Attlee, who for the last year has been Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and who has been the representative of the Limehousp Division since 1922. was born in 1883. He was educated at Haileybury College, and at University College, Oxford, graduating with 2nd class honours, Modern History. Called

to the Bar, Inner Temple, 1905; secretary, Toynbee Hall, 1910; Tutor and Lecturer In Social Science at London School of Economies, 1913-23; served in the war (Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and France). 1914-1919, retiring with the rank of Major; Mayor of Stepney, 1919-1920; Alderman since 1919; member of the Fabian Society, and Independent Labour Party since 1903; Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition, 192224; Under-Secretary for War, 1924; member of the Indian Statutory Commission, 1927.