SHOUT OF “SHUT UP!”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 345, 4 May 1928, Page 1

SHOUT OF “SHUT UP!”

COMEDY IN THE COMMONS STRANGER FLINGS HAT (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian P.A. — United Service) LONDON, Thursday. An amusing debate took place in the House of Commons last evening on the Budget proposal to tax mechanical lighters. Liberal members characterised this as protection for the match industry. Labour members said it was a fine imposed on the worker’s wife who dared to use a lighter Instead of matches to light her gas stove. They said the Government would next propose a tax on paper spills. Mr. E. Ramsden, Conservative member for Bradford North, proposed that the duty should be threepence instead of sixpence. Mr. A. M. Samuel, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who was in charge during the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Winston Churchill, owing to an attack of influenza, declined to accept an amendment on such a small matter. Thereopon members of the Opposition demanded an adjournment, complaining that Mr. Samuel was “playing fast and loose” with the House in Mr. Churchill’s absence. The motion for the adjournment was adopted without a division. TIME WASTED Commander Eyres-Monsell, Government Whip, protested against time being wasted on such a trivial matter, and explained the cause of Mr. Churchill’s absence. He suggested that Mr. Ramsden should withdraw his amendment and bring it forward later. Mr. Ramsden agreed. The climax to the comedy came when another Labour amendment was being considered. A man in the Strangers’ Gallery suddenly shouted: “Shut up,” and hurled a soft hat into the Chamber. The hat lighted in the middle of the Conservative benches. When two attendants approached the Gallery the intruder walked out quietly. Mr. Samuel then accepted the amendment, which was .to the effect that the duty should not apply to the mechanical lighters attached to miners’ lamps.