§ Mr. JAMES THOMASasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Port of London Authority are giving a holiday to the whole of their platelayers on 27th May in celebration of the King's birthday, and also giving notice of two days' holiday to the same men at the Coronation, in both cases without pay; and whether the Port of London Authority will reconsider their decision with a view to paying the men?
Mr. BUXTONI am informed by the Port of London Authority that their platelayers, in common with the rest of their staff, will not be employed on 27th May or on the two Coronation Bank Holidays, and that although they do not see their way to give effect to the suggestion made by the hon. Member as regards the pay of men engaged by the day or hour on the King's birthday, and ordinary public holidays, they have decided that all workmen whom the Authority are satisfied they would employ on the two Coronation days shall be paid wages for those days.
§ Colonel KYFFIN-TAYLORasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have commended the clergy to use a form of service in parish churches on Coronation day which is not ordered by lawful authority, which refers to the Communion Table as the Altar, and which suppresses the King's oath to maintain the Protestant reformed religion established by law; and whether he will advise his Majesty to set forth a form of service for use in parish churches on Coronation day, 586W using the Church's authorised description of the Communion Table, and giving the full wording of the statutory Coronation oath, modelled on that set forth by the command of his late Majesty King Edward VII. and widely used throughout the Empire?
§ The PRIME MINISTERI am aware that, following a practice which is not unusual on other occasions besides the Coronation, the archbishops have commended to their provinces a form or service for parish churches on Coronation Day. The use of this service is not, I understand, obligatory on any beneficed clerk, but as it follows closely, though in a necessarily abbreviated form, the phraseology of the traditional Coronation Office in which the word altar is used both in the text and in the rubric, I can see no objection to it, nor any reason for adopting the suggestion made in the latter part of the hon. Member's question.