PRESS COMMENT.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19161, 18 November 1927, Page 11

PRESS COMMENT.

OPINION DIVIDED-. {AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z CABLX ASSOCIATION.) (Received November 17th, 9.10 p.m.) LONDON, November 17. Opinions in the lobby and the Press are divided as to whether Mr Baldwin should have participated in the debate on Mr Mac Donald's censure motion over the state of the coal industry. The "Daily Telegraph" says it would be an intolerable burden if the Prime Minister was expected to take the lead in replying to a vote of censure on any Department while the Minister of that Department sat silent. The "Daily Express" says Mr Baldwin should have met the attack because it was a vote of censure on the Government, and the problem a pressing one. The "Daily Chronicle" says: "Surely the least Mr Baldwin could have done was to rise immediately after Mr Mac Donald, and show the House he was alive to the tragedy of his fellow-coun-trvmen." The political correspondent of the "Daily Herald" declares that the Opposition, before the debate, learned that the Prime Minister had no intention of speaking. The "Morning Post," on the contrary, says that though no arrangement had been made for the Prime Minister's intervention, Mr Baldwin was quite prepared to speak if it was the general desire that he should do so. It was in pursuance of the ordinary course that

Sir P. Cnnliffe-Lister, as the Minister responsible, rose to reply. The correspondent adds with reference to the remark by Mr Thomas that Sir P. Cun-liffe-Lister had disposed of all his coalmining interests, there was every reason to believe that Mr Mac Donald was aware of that fact, but presumably had not passed on the information to Mr