IMPORTANT DEBATE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 133, 6 May 1940, Page 7

IMPORTANT DEBATE

IN COMMONS TO-MORROWi STATEMENT AWAITED. (British Official Wireless.) Received May' 6, 9.35 a.m. RUGBY, May 5. A iargo part of the business of the House of Commons in the coming week will be taken up with the debate on recent events in Norway. It is recognised that Mr Chamberlain’s speech in the House on Thursday was only of an interim nature and that his story was not complete. Discussion was at the time withheld until a further picture could with safety be told. It is expected that Mr Chamberlain will give a full .account of these recent events on Tuesday, when the whole sitting will be devoted to the debate on what the whole country readily accepts as a setback in the first phase of the Norwegian campaign. It is expected that the debate will continue throughout Wednesday. There will he a further discussion in the House of Lords on Thursday. Though there is a sense of relief <nd gratification that the setback did not, as it might well have done had it been less skilfully conducted, turn to disaster, there undoubtedly existed certain uneasiness in the minds not only of the Opposition members before they separated for the week-end, and it is likely that some signs of this will be manifest in the coming debate. The attitude of tlie Labour leaders to the war lias sliown by two speeches made on : Saturday. Mr Ernest Bevin, of the Transport Workers’: Union, said: “We are tired of hearing how one small ship went out and tackled overwhelming odds, and how two fighters went, into combat with ten raiding bombers.” It was all very well for the country’s men to have courage. but what lie wanted was equality of weapons. Mr W. Lawtlier, of the Miners’ Federation, said: “We have no room for those dismal pessimists who see in every fresli phase of our struggle room for doubting the triumph of the cause we have undertaken.”