17 MARCH 1939, Page 6

The decision of the Kitchen Committee of the House of

Commons to run a cocktail-party on, I think, the 29th of this month, has aroused a good deal of adverse criticism. and I am not surprised. The idea, it appears, is to popu- larise the various bars for which the Kitchen Committee is responsible. No one will be disposed to question the right of legislators to satisfy their desires for any form of liquid stimulant that appeals to them, but active encouragement in the propensity hardly seems called for. The cocktail- party is a small thing, but it chimes a little incongruously with debates on the Dole and the Means Test * * * *