NEWS FROM 100 YEARS AGO : 16 December 1924

16 DECEMBER 1924

Mr Austen Chamberlain’s speech in the debate on the Address in the House of Commons was largely taken up with the Egyptian question. He emphasised the British trusteeship in the Sudan, the desire of the Government that the Egyptian Government should work with and not against Britain, and urged that there was no case to take to the League. Egyptian independence would be respected. The Foreign Secretary, referring to the Zinoviev letter, said that from four sources the Government had evidence of its authenticity. Dividing on the Socialist amendment to the Address, the House gave the Government a majority of 231.

Replying to questions by Mr Ramsay MacDonald in the House of Commons bearing on the Campbell case, the Prime Minister said there was no doubt that in particular cases of an exceptional character the Attorney-General, before undertaking a prosecution, had consulted the Cabinet. That, however, appeared to be an entirely different matter from the issue of a general instruction which would have the effect of placing the Attorney-General in a position of complete subservience to the executive authorities.

Questions with regard to Sir Dari Singa’s A.D.C. were put in the House of Commons to the Under Secretary for India.

Mr W. M. R. Pringle, supporting the Liberal candidate at a meeting in Dundee, was subjected to considerable interruption, and in a counter-attack said measures would be adopted to stop such tactics. Force would be met by force.

A Paris newspaper says that the number of killed, wounded, and missing in the last Spanish retreat in Morocco amounted to 20,000 men, besides the loss of several thousand prisoners.