Jews in National Government: Sir Herbert Samuel Closes Case for Government in House of Commons and L

The two Jews who are Cabinet Ministers in the National Government, Sir Herbert Samuel, the Home Secretary, and Lord Reading, the Foreign Secretary, both spoke last night in the big debates which took place in the House of Commons and the House of Lords respectively, when the Government asked for and obtained a vote of confidence.

In the House of Commons, it was Sir Herbert Samuel who replied to the debate, closing the case on behalf of the Government, after Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Henderson, the leader of the Opposition, had spoken, and immediately after his speech the vote was taken, yielding a Government majority of 59.

In the House of Lords, it was Lord Reading who opened the debate, stating the case for the Government. Mandate he said in the course of his speech. When a house is on fire. It is like asking you to call a meeting a week ahead to discuss what you will do if another fire occurs.

Lord Pasfield, the former Colonial Secretary, followed Lord Reading as the official spokesman on behalf of the Opposition in the House of Lords. Lord Melchett was another speaker in the House of Lords debate.

At the same time that Parliament was debating the policy of the new Government, the Trades Union Congress, which is in session in Bristol, was discussing Mondism, the policy introduced by the late Lord Melchett and adopted by the Trade Union Congress in the form of the Mond-Turner Report and the machinery set up in accordance with it between the General Council of Trade Unions and the Employers Federation. A demand for the repudiation of Mondism was made by Mr. P. H. Collick, of the Union of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, who contended that the General Council’s policy of collaboration with the employers was a disservice to the workers. Mr. Ernest Bevin, the head of the Transport Workers’ Union, said that his complaint was not against the Mond-Turner report, but against the movement for not grasping the recommendations of the report and trying to apply them. When the question was put to the vote, Mondism was upheld by the Congress by 2,818,000 votes against 160,000.

At the same time that three Jews are collaborating in the National Government, two in the Cabinet, and one, Sir Philip Sassoon, in a minor post, Mr. Emanuel Shinwell, who was Minister of Mines in the Labour Government, was yesterday elected a member of the Executive of the Labour Opposition, in other words, of the Opposition Shadow Cabinet.