ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
Tuesday, February 10th.—As His Majesty read his gracious speech to the assembled Lords and Commons did his thoughts flow back for a moment to the last time he opened Parliament in person? It was on another February 10th, in 1914, and so little was the coming storm foreseen that the customary announcement, "My relations with Foreign Powers continue to be friendly," was followed by a special reference to the satisfactory progress of "my negotiations with the German Government and the Ottoman Government" regarding—Mesopotamia, of all places.
Since then everything has changed—save one. Ireland remains the skeleton at the feast. The condition of that unhappy country still causes His Majesty "grave concern," to be removed, let us piously hope, by the promised Home Rule Bill. It is true that, as Lord Dufferin said when moving the Address in the Lords, no one in Ireland appears to want the Bill; but then, as Colonel Sidney Peel, the Mover in the Commons, remarked with equal truth, the ordinary rules of thought do not apply to the Irish Question.
The Prime Minister has lately been advised by a candid friend to take a six months' holiday "to recover his resilience." Mr. Adamson and Sir Donald Maclean found him nowise lacking in that quality when he came to reply to their criticisms of the King's Speech. The Labour leader, convinced by a fortnight in Ireland that the present Administration was all wrong, and that the Government's Bill would do nothing to improve it, was bluntly asked, "Are we to withdraw the troops and leave the assassins in charge?" while the "Wee Free" champion, who had interpreted the recent by-elections as a sign that the time for the Coalition was past, was unkindly reminded that, at any rate, the results of these contests had furnished no encouragement to the party that he adorns. "But I am afraid I am getting controversial," said Mr. Llloyd George, to the amusement of the House, which had enjoyed his sword-play for half-an-hour; and with that he turned to the task of defending the new policy in Russia. Having failed to subdue the Bolshevists by force, we are now going to try the effect of commerce—a modern reading of "Trade Follows the Flag." The Labour Party cheered the new departure vociferously, but the rest of the House seemed a little chilly, and Mr. Churchill, at the Prime Minister's elbow, looked about as happy as Napoleon on the return from Moscow.
HILARITY OF MR. CHURCHILL ON HEARING HIS CHIEF'S VIEWS ABOUT RUSSIA.
Lord Hugh Cecil raised the standard of economy, and complained that the legislative programme was extravagantly long. "A large number of Bills generally meant a large amount of expenditure." I have myself observed this phenomenon.
Wednesday, February 11th.—The Lords, having disposed of the Address with their usual celerity, welcomed Baron Riddell of Walton Heath (and, perhaps I may add, Bouverie Street) to their ranks, and then adjourned for a week.
If all Labour Members possessed the sweet reasonableness of Mr. Brace we should view the advent of a Labour Government without any of Mr. Churchill's misgivings. The Member for Abertillery argued the case for the nationalisation of mines so gently and genially that before he sat down I am sure that a good half of his hearers began to think that, after all, there was "something in it." Visions of a carboniferous millennium, when there would be no more strikes and hardly any accidents, and altruistic colliers would hew their hardest to get cheap and abundant coal for the community, floated before the mind's eye as Mr. Brace purred persuasively along.
(Mr. W. Brace).
"For he led us, he said, to a joyous land
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new."
Unfortunately for the Nationalisers Mr. Lunn thought it necessary later to make a blood-and-thunder oration, threatening all sorts of dreadful things (including a boycott of the newspapers) if the Miners' demands were refused. Moreover, he made it clear that coal was only a beginning and that the Labour Party's ultimate objective was nationalisation all round, and wound up by reminding the House that "we are many and ye are few."
The Prime Minister is not the man either to miss a chance or refuse a challenge. The tone of his reply was set by Mr. Lunn, not by Mr. Brace; and though he had plenty of solid arguments to advance against the motion the most telling passage in his speech was a quotation from "Comrade Trotsky," showing what Nationalisation had spelt in Soviet Russia—labour conscription in its most drastic shape. The nation, he declared, that had fought for liberty throughout the world would stand to the death against this new bondage.
Result: Amendment defeated by 329 to 64.
Thursday, February 12th.—This was the first Question-day of the new Session, and the House was flattered to see Mr. Lloyd George in his place, despite the counter-claims of the Peace Conference at St. James's Palace. Evidently he means this year to "stick to the shop" more closely, in view, perhaps, of the possible return from Paisley of the old proprietor.
To a Labour Member's complaint that several ex-Generals had been appointed as divisional Food officers, Mr. McCurdy replied that no preference was given to military candidates. But why not? Where will you find more competent judges of alimentary questions than in the higher ranks of His Majesty's Forces?
In attacking the provisions of the Peace Treaty with Germany as "impracticable," Sir Donald Maclean revealed himself as a diligent student of a recent notorious book. Most of his observations—excepting, perhaps, the statement that he had "no sentimental tenderness for the Germans"—were marked with the brand of Keynes, and his assertion that the utmost Germany could pay was two thousand millions came bodily from that eminent statistician. To the same inspiration was possibly due the unhappy suggestion that our chief Ally was pursuing a policy of revenge.
For this he was promptly pulled up by Lord Robert Cecil, who warned him not to judge the policy of France by the utterances of certain French newspapers. Lord Robert had, however, his own quarrel with the Government, who, according to his account, had done nothing to set Central Europe on its legs again, except to send it a certain amount of food—not, one would would have thought, an altogether bad preliminary.
It was a pity that Mr. Balfour had not a stronger indictment to answer, for he was dialectically at his best. After complimenting the Opposition leader on his "charming tones and anodyne temper" he proceeded to take up his challenge—"if I may call it a challenge." If Germany was in doubt as to the amount she might be called upon to pay, she had her remedy, for the Peace Treaty especially provided that she might offer a "lump sum." The list of war-criminals was long, no doubt, but we had limited our own demands to those who were guilty of gratuitous brutality. As for the condition of Central Europe, that was not the fault of the Peace Treaty, it was the fault of the War, and this country had done all it reasonably could to remedy it.
The Opposition insisted on taking a division, and were beaten by 254 to 60. So far the "doomed Coalition" seems to be doing rather well.