Word: parliament
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Outside the Parliament Building, tulips bloomed and strollers idled along sun drenched walks. Inside, the House of Com mons was being told that Canada was in for a cold, tough winter. Reason: the coal strike in the U.S. (see NATIONAL AF FAIRS). Said Reconstruction Minister Clarence Decatur Howe: "The Canadian position will be very serious. . . . I am much more alarmed . . . than I was at any time during the war." Two days later the truce in the strike was reached. But even a final settlement would not mean coal for Canada right away. U.S. bins would probably have to be filled...
...another section of Parliament some Britons felt that spring-cleaning had gone too far. When Laborite T. C. Skeffington-Lodge quoted statements that 40% of Britain's dewy, young (under 20) brides were pregnant on their wedding day, the House of Commons could only shake its collective fatherly head. Conservative Novelist Beverley Baxter doubted the shocking estimate, warned: "If this is published without considerable repudiation, it will shock the people of the Dominions...
Cyclotrons were not all. Sweden was obviously planning to build a uranium-plutonium pile, for Parliament had been asked to appropriate $1 million for high-purity graphite, heavy water and other pile materials. No uranium had been mined as yet, but fairly large deposits had been found in central Sweden. They were low grade, containing less than half a pound of uranium per ton of ore. Swedish uranium would be expensive, but cost might be no barrier if richer deposits in luckier countries were kept away from the open market...
While a five-hour debate raged in Parliament, eight of the Sultans prepared to leave for London to protest in person. A ninth, the fabulous, 72-year-old ex-playboy Sultan of Johore was already there, leading the fight from a swank suite in Grosvenor House. Gone were the days when British officials used to remove him (for his own good) from Singapore nightspots at 10 p.m.; now he was telling the British where to head...
...truth was that Canada's King was not at all interested in conferring about defense or trade or anything else with the other members of the Empire. For one thing, he was busy enough at home. Parliament was in session. There were explosive Dominion-Provincial differences to be ironed out. And why should he go? To discuss trade? Canada already knew where she stood: she would help Britain, her best customer, back to stability with a loan of $1,250,000,000 and with urgent food shipments. Defense? Canada would, if need be, discuss that vital problem with...