ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
(Extracted From the Diary Of Toby, M. P.)
House of Commons, Monday, May 25.—"Let the curtain ring down, Mr. Speaker, and the sooner the better. It is a farce, and I think a contemptible farce."
Thus Bonner Law—the farce being the Third Reading of the Home Rule Bill.
The curtain had risen on a thronged and excited House. Were it the custom at the T. R. Westminster to put out notice-boards one might have borne the legend dear to the heart of the manager, "Standing room Only." Even late-comers among the peers were fain to stand by the doorway opening on the Gallery, where earlier birds had found twigs on which to sit. Overflow of Commoners into the side galleries gave the last touch to stirring scene presented but twice or thrice in history of a Session.
Conjurer. "Ladies and gentlemen, I will now place this scroll in the hat, and in a few weeks I shall show you something—er—something which will surprise you."
A Voice. "You've got it up your sleeve."
Conjurer. "On the contrary, gentlemen." (Aside) "Wish to Heaven I had!"
Ordered business of sitting was the stage of the measure alluded to in phrase quoted from Leader of opposition. But, as was testified anew last Thursday, business in House of Commons does not always run through expected courses. In strained temper of the hour anything might happen, even a bout of fisticuffs. What actually did happen was that within space of hour and a-half from Speaker's taking the Chair, a period including the ordinary Question-hour, Home Rule Bill was read a third time and carried over to House of Lords through cheering crowd waiting in Central Lobby.
Speaker introduced soothing note by frank confession that, when on Thursday he invited Leader of Opposition to state whether he approved the outburst of disorder among his followers which prevented their authorised spokesman being heard, he "was betrayed into an expression he ought not to have used." Bonner Law "gratefully accepted the explanation," and eloquently extolled the character of the Speaker.
Speaker invited Premier to yield to insistent demand of Opposition and give further particulars with regard to the Amending Bill. The Premier, always ready to oblige, responded in a few luminous, courteous sentences, which did not add a syllable of information beyond what had been reiterated in previous references to subject. It was then that Bonner Law, with rare dramatic gesture, gave the command, "Ring down the curtain!" "It is the end of the Act, but not of the play," he added amid loud cheers from host behind him, reinforced this afternoon by arrival of recruits from North-East Derbyshire and Ipswich. "The final Act in the drama will be played not in the House of Commons, but in the country, and there, Sir, it will not be a farce."
