Telephone No. 33837. Please send for explanatory booklet to the Bill before he rose to introduce the second reading and his speech was less a spirited exposition of its merits than a dis-pinted defence of its defects. "Australia and New. Zealand collect information of this without rousing resentment," he said, "why shouldn't we?"
To which My. Herbert pertly replied, "Why should we copy Australia and New Zealand in all the, silly things they do? The second reading went through by 177 votes to 97— a very poor majority for the Government, If the Bill is not withdrawn, it will certainly. be enormously modified in the Committee stage.
Mr. A. P. Herbert made a long speech which caused a good deal of laughter. But one could not help thinking that his jokes if made by a music-hall comedian would have led the London County Council to look into the matter of that particular music-hall's licence. He wound up with a memorandum of a sort which rarely finds its way into the laborious pages of Hansard. Here it is:—
In 1937 was a rumour going round That income-tax was soon to be six shillings in the pound; The cost of education every season seemed 4o swell; And to every one's astonishment the population fell, A
They pulled down all the houses where the children used to crowd.
And built expensive blocks of flats where children weren't allowed; And if father got a job there wasn't anywhere to dwell, And everybody wondered why the population ell.
Five hundred brand new motor cars each morning rode the roads, And flashed about like comets or sat motionless as toads; Whichever course they took they made the public highway hell, And everybody wondered why the population fell, The laws were very comical: to bet was voted lax, But your betting was the only thing that nobody would tax; You couldn't have a wine unless you'd sand-wishes as, well; And everybody wondered why the population fell, Great Science nobly laboured to increase the people's joys, But every new invention seemed to add another neis One was always on the telephone or answering the bell, And everybody wondered why the population fell.
The taverns were controlled by men who didn't want to drink; The newspapers were run by men who hadn't time to thin!
The cinema was managed by a. ran who couldn't spell, And everybody wondered why the population fell, Abroad, to show that every one was passionate for peace, All children under seven joined the Army or police; The babies studied musketry while mother filled a shell—And everybody wondered why the population fell.
The world, in short, which never was extravagantly sane, Developed all the signs of inflammation of the brain; The past was not encouraging, the future none could tell, (Here the hon. member, to the amusement of the House, pointed to the Minister of Health.) But the Minister still wonders why the population fell.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.