PAWN MEDALS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 1

PAWN MEDALS

Hard-Up Soldier Fails SCENE IN HOUSE “GIVE THEM TO BALDWIN” By Cable.—Press Association. —Copyright LONDON, Friday. A remarkable incident occurred in the House of Commons last evening. Mr. John Beckett, Labour member for Gateshead, was speaking on the Unemployment Insurance Bill when he took a letter and a small parcel from, his pocket, saying: “This is a letter from an unemployed man, the conditions of whose life X know. In It are enclosed his Mons and other medals. The man cannot obtain any unemployment benefit though he has tramped his boots off seeking work. He tells me the pawnshops will not take his medals and asks me to hand them to the Prime Minister, who, he says, will know what to do with them. “I do not know what the man means by that, but when I sit down I will hand the medals to the Minister of Labour, Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, who can present them to his chief. I suggest thev be framed and hung in the Carlton Club as a trophy of what Toryism has done for "who fought in the Great War.’ Mr. Beckett then walked round the Speaker’s chair and left the medals on the Treasury bench beside Sir Arthur. At a later stage the Minister notified Mr. Beckett that if he wanted Mr. Baldwin to see the medals he had better send them to him himself. Mr Beckett thereupon sent the medals with a covering letter to the Prime Minister. —A. and N.Z.