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Adjournment (Summer)

Volume 350: debated on Friday 4 August 1939

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Far East (Situation)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn." — [ Captain Margesson.]

11.44 a-m.

I desire to raise the questions of the present conflict in the Far East between Japan and China, the negotiations which are now proceeding in Tokyo and the action which His Majesty's Government ought or ought not to take to deal with the present grave situation. For two years there has been war in China, aggressive war, with the conquest of China as its avowed objective, which violates, as the Government admit, the Kellogg Pact, the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Nine- Power Treaty, of all of which Great Britain is a signatory Power. That war has been ruthless from the outset. It has been the most savage and the most law less conflict since Grotius wrote "The Law of War and Peace" 300 years ago. The good name of Japan has been stained by acts of shameless cruelty and carnage which history will not forget, and it has involved a sum of human suffering before which the imagination reels. That aggression has been accompanied from the outset by an unbroken succession of outrages against British and other foreign residents in China. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) said the other day that the American State Department

Royal Assent

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned, Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

  • 1. Appropriation Act, 1939.
  • 2. Isle of Man (Customs) Act, 1939.
  • 3. Cotton Industry (Reorganisation) Act, 1939.
  • 4. Building Societies Act, 1939.
  • 5. Riding Establishments Act, 1939.
  • 6. War Risks Insurance Act, 1939.
  • 7. Public Health (Coal Mine Refuse)Act, 1939.
  • 8. Air Ministry (Heston and Kenley Aerodromes Extension) Act, 1939-
  • 9. Senior Public Elementary Schools (Liverpool) Act, 1939.
  • 10. British Overseas Airways Act, 1939.
  • 11. Aberdeen Harbour (Superannuation) Order Confirmation Act, 1939.
  • 12. Dunbartonshire County Council (Kirkintilloch Street Improvement) Order Confirmation Act, 1939-
  • 13. Lanarkshire County Council Order Confirmation Act, 1939.
  • 14. Motherwell and Wishaw Electricity, &, Order Confirmation Act, 1939.
  • 15. Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Bethesda) Act, 1939-
  • 16. Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Bradford) Act, 1939-
  • 17. Metropolitan Water Board Act,1939-
  • 18. London Building Acts (Amendment) Act, 1939.
  • 19. West Gloucestershire Water Act,1939-
  • 20. London Gas Undertakings (Regulations) Act, 1939.
  • 21. London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1939.
  • 22. London County Council (Improvements) Act, 1939.
  • 23. Folkestone Water Act, 1939.
  • 24. Sheffield Corporation Act, 1939.