Word: parliament
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...first day, when Communist Minister of the Interior Vaclav Nosek "discovered" the National Socialist Party's conspiracy against the state, Prague shivered with cold and fright. Truckloads of armed police with brand-new automatic rifles rumbled through the streets. Opposition leaders were arrested and Parliament, scheduled to meet next day, postponed the session indefinitely. Archbishop Beran of Prague was refused permission to pray for peace on the Communist-controlled Prague radio. In the streetcars, which used to be favorite political forums, passengers were silent. President Eduard Benes' executive office announced that the President "asks all citizens to maintain...
...this. The fake radio news was enough to frighten Socialist Leader Bohumil Lausman, a middle-of-the-roader, into resigning. Loudspeaker trucks proclaimed that his pro-Communist rival Zdenek Fierlinger had resumed leadership of the Socialist Party. This meant that the Communists could now control a legal majority in Parliament. But Benes still held...
Klement Gottwald was a European too, but of a different cast. He had been raised in the iron Kinderstube of the Comintern. In 1929, when he first appeared in Czechoslovakia's Parliament, he said: "You, gentlemen, are asking me what we are here for. My answer is simple. We are here to break your necks...
...well-regulated mind of Herbert Morrison, Labor's Leader of the House of Commons, there are few tendernesses for old abuses. Thus, Labor's bill to reapportion seats in Parliament called, as well, for an end to a time-honored anachronism: plural voting. With a battle cry of "One man, one vote," Laborites denounced in particular the custom of having the financial "City" of London and the graduates of British universities elect their own M.P.s*. Last week, Morrison admitted that he could never think of the ancient City of London "without having in my veins some degree...
From Finance Minister Douglas Abbott, Parliament got a preliminary tally on Canada's foreign business in 1947, found no comfort in the figures. The Dominion had spent $1,155,000,000 more in the U.S. than the U.S. had spent in Canada. Counting other deals (e.g., a $74 million subscription to the International Monetary Fund), the Dominion's deficit in U.S. currency was $1,395,000,000. Because only $652 million came in from Britain and other hard-up customers, Canada had dipped into reserves for $743 million...