HOUSE OF COMMONS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 562, 20 June 1933, Page 7

HOUSE OF COMMONS

dignity disturbed ; GIRL SHOWERS LEAFLETS ON ASTONISHED 1 MEMBERS *""" ^ . ACTION OF PRO'TEST A pretty fair-liaired girl of about 18 caused an astonishing scene in the House of Commons reetntly. ! She sat — a slight, serious little figure, plainly dressed in a mackintosh over a coat and' skirt — in a front seat of the. Stranger's Gallery quietly listening to Sir Bolton Eyeres-Mon-sell (First Lord of the Admirajty) defending the £3,093,700 increase in the Navy estimates. But soon after the First Lord had finished and Mr. George Hall (Civil Lord of the Admiralty in the Labour Government) was speaking from the front Opposition Beneh, she rose from her seat, climbed over the railings in front of her and dropped about three feet into the Peer's Gallery, where Lord Beatty had been sitting a few minutes before. . As the attendants were busy with . a man and a woman who had begun to shout in other parts of the Strangers' Gallery. a few seconds before, the girl succeeded in doing what had never before been done in the House. Without a moment's hesitation she climbed over another barrier into a | long gallery runing the whole length of the House. No previous demonstrator had" ever sucee-ded in teaching this excellent position. From beneath her mackintosh she drew an enormous bundle of green leaflets. She threw a handful that soared into the air and then fell gracefully on to the members below. She threw another handful with a sweep of the arai that caused them to fly right across the Chamber and

nutber down m a green cloud on to the Tories, Liberals, and Labour alike. Sir Herbert Samuel was almost submerged. The First Lord of the Admiralty was snowed under by a well-directed packet. Mr. Earnest Brown, the Simonite Minister of Mines, blinked uneasily as the green cloud envelope-d him. | Mr. Hall was in the middle of a sentence when a score or so of leaflets swerved round his head, and one momeptarily rested on his nose.. But he completed his sentence, and went on quietly with his speech. Still more leaflets fell from the. sky till the floor Was covered with a green carpet and Sir Herbert S'amuel was almost invisible. The girl seeing an attendant coming toward her, ran along the rest of the gallery, scattering leaflets as she went, and as a parting shot threw a packet into the Press Gallery. Then she quietly went through a door and disappeared. Mr. Winston Churchill e-ntered the House and picked up one of the leaflets. This was what he read: More Money for War: £26,000 for the Air Force. — Economy on Education. More Money for War: £1,462,000 more for the Army. — Economy on Housing. More Money for War: £3,093,700 more for the Navy. — Economy on the Unemployed. End This Nonsense. Mr. Churchill smiled. Throughout the evening, while the debate went on, the leafllets remained undisturbed on the floor and the benches. Officially, they did not exist. Not till the House rose, and charwomen could enter the sacred Chamber, were the trespassing leaflets swept up.