EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
House of Commons, Monday, December 11.—Remarkable testimony to catholicity of Dicky Temple's mind that he should just now have been talking about Siam. Various other topics to the fore. The Featherstone inquiry; Matabeleland, in which the Sage Of Queen Anne's Gate takes unfaltering interest; Betterment, and, incidentally, the Parish Councils Bill. Only Temple thinks of remote, unfriended, solitary Siam. Wants to know when papers including most recent correspondence will be published? Edward Grey taken at a disadvantage. Wasn't thinking of Siam. Just been looking up map to find out precise situation of Kilia mouth of the Danube. Cap'en Tommy Bowles been, so to speak, jumping down it. Suspects the Czar of iniquitous intention in this part of the world. Czar evidently thought the Cap'en, being intent on the education of Mundella in nautical affairs, would not have time to keep an eye on the Kilia mouth of the Danube. Czar knows better now. So does Edward Grey. Spent quite an interesting quarter of an hour with the map, and came at last upon this particular outlet. Just congratulating himself that, as a rule, British rivers have only one mouth, when Temple sprang Siam upon him.
"Do you know," said Member for Sark, looking admiringly at the great historiographer of Parliament, "I never see Temple on his legs but I think of Ovid's epitaph on the parrot. You remember how it runs in English?—
'I please the fair. So much this stone doth tell.
What more? I talked, and, for a bird, talked well.'
"I have a theory, which, if you had time, I would illustrate by half-a-dozen examples taken on glancing round the House, that three out of five human faces have a strong resemblance to some particular bird. Not that I mean to say Temple's like a parrot, except of course inasmuch as he pleases the fair. He is a man of tireless industry, sound judgment, wide knowledge of affairs and has, withal, an old-fashioned courtesy of manner not too common in these days. Still, as I say, when I watch him addressing the Speaker the parrot's epitaph haunts my memory."
Business done.—Clause XIII added to Parish Councils Bill.
Tuesday.—To-night Don't Keir Hardie, having left hands and face unwashed for an extra day, his hair uncombed for an added week, put on his worst Sunday suit and presented himself to House as model working-man, champion of the unemployed. Don't Keir's misfortune is that he has not succeeded in recommending himself to good opinion of other Labour Members. When he moves in House they move off; consequence is he is left to support of aristocrats above the gangway. They don't particularly admire Don't Keir, his ways or his cause. But, as Tomlinson says, under impression he is quoting from Sydney Smith, "any stick will do to beat a dog with." If Don't Keir moves Adjournment, and best part of night can be taken for making speeches, so much delay is interposed in way of Parish Councils Bill, and by so much is chance bettered of Government failing in their intention of passing the whole Bill. Therefore, though other Labour candidates will have nothing to do with Don't Keir, there are four hours talk, an odd quarter of an hour added for a division, and thirty-three Members, chiefly belonging to the Gentlemen of England, going into Lobby with the Leader whom Rowlands distantly alludes to as "The hon. Member for West 'Am," cunningly conveying by inflection of voice the impression that the cut is from a hopelessly inferior part.
Debate, on the whole, patchy, with hopeless air of unreality about it. Nevertheless, worth having, if it were only for speech of Prince Arthur. A scholarly philosophic deliverance, striking unaccustomed note in Parliamentary debate. Pity Mr. G. wasn't there to hear it. Or perhaps it isn't a pity. If he had been, he would have found the temptation to reply irresistible; at least another half hour would have been wasted.
Business done.—Reached Clause XVI. Parish Councils Bill.
