PRINTER'S ERROR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 30, 5 February 1935, Page 9

PRINTER'S ERROR

HOUSE HAS TO ADJOURN. ■•TEAT” SHOULD HAVE BEEN “THAN.” A grotesque episode brought ihe House of Uoiuuions to an early adjournuieiit, Btate’d the London Daily Telegraph recently. Ihe business of the day was discussion of the, new Unemployment Assistance Regulations. It had been the text of every Socialist speech, though their benches were not very well filled, tint the regulations call for the most severe examination, the most righteous wrath. Long before It) o’clock one of the party, Mr. T. Smith, discovered that on page 7 there was a word “that” which

should have been "than.” The Solicitor-General (Sir D. Somervell) admitted that there was a printer’s error. Now the statute provides that these regulations cannot be amended, but only approved or rejected. Sir Stafford Cripps had his say, and minor Socialist luminaries, and then Mr. Lansbury asked the Deputy Speaker, Captain Bourne, what was to be done. Captain Bourne warily replied that he could not give a definite ruling as he did not know whether the document before him was an exact copy of the regulations. Mr. Lansbury moved the adjournment as the only course in this drpad ful situation. Mr. Baldwin did not conceal his amusement. The point, he remarked, was one which he would have enjoyed 30 years ago. From his present situa-

tion and at his present years he thought it of minor importance. But he readily admitted that there was an error, readily he agreed to adjourn to consider it —only, of course, on the understanding that the debate on the regulations would finish on Wednesday as originally arranged. The Socialists did not dissGhible their joy. Some hours of laborious indignation had been spared them. It is rarely that both sides of the House are so happy together. The light which Ihe incident cast on the earnestness of Socialist wrath will long be a comical memory.