ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
Monday, June 21st.—While the Prime Minister was celebrating the longest—and pretty nearly the hottest—day by a vin d'honneur at Boulogne Mr. Bonar Law had to content himself with small beer in the Commons.
The Government, it seems, is to offer its services to effect a peaceful settlement between the Imam Yahya and the Said Idrissi, who are rival rulers in Arabia. There is believed to be a possibility that in return the said Said will offer his services to effect a peaceful settlement in Hibernia Infelix.
The Government is not so indifferent to economy as is sometimes suggested. The Prime Minister's famous letter to the Departments was only written in August last, yet already, Mr. Bonar Law assured the House, some progress has been made in reducing redundant staffs, and the Government has appointed—no, I beg pardon, "decided to appoint"—independent Committees to carry out investigations. The hustlers!
Do you expect me to send the Sergeant-at-Arms to fetch the Minister of Transport?—The Speaker.
The Member for Wood Green, who urged that the Treasury should prepare an estimate of the national income, with the view of limiting the national expenditure to a definite proportion of that amount, displayed, it seems to me, amazing temerity. The course of taxation in recent years encourages the belief that the only thing that restrains the Chancellor of the Exchequer from taking our little all is that he does not know how much it is.
Capt. Wedgewood Benn's complaint that the Minister of Transport habitually absented himself from the House met with little encouragement from the Speaker, who sarcastically inquired if he should send the Serjeant-at-Arms to fetch the delinquent. Capt. Benn then dropped the subject, and Sir Colin Keppel looked relieved.
The Government insisted on taking the Report stage and Third Reading of the Rent (Restrictions) Bill at one sitting, and kept the House up till half-past three in order to do it. Dr. Addison had need of what the Iron Duke called "two o'clock in the morning courage" to ward off attacks. Once, when Sir Arthur Fell was depicting the desperate plight of the landladies of Yarmouth, forbidden under a penalty of a hundred pounds to charge more than twenty-five per cent. in excess of their pre-war prices, it looked as if the Minister must give way; but with some difficulty he convinced his critics that the clause in question had nothing to do with seaside landladies.
Tuesday, June 22nd.—In the Lords the Bishops, reinforced by the ecclesiastically-minded lay Peers, made a last attempt to throw out the Matrimonial Causes Bill. Lord Braye moved its rejection, and was supported by Lord Halifax in a speech whose pathos was even stronger than its argument, and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who admitted that reform of the marriage laws was required, but considered that the Bill went a great deal further than was necessary. The Lord Chancellor thereupon re-stated the case for the measure, for which be believed the Government were prepared to give facilities in the other House, and Lord Buckmaster repeated his exegesis of the vexed passage in St. Matthew's Gospel, on which the whole theological controversy turns. The Third Reading was carried by 154 votes to 107.
MENS ÆQUA REBUS IN ARDUIS.
Mr. Denis Henry on the Irish situation.
The Commons in the course of the Irish Debate discussed the failure of the Government to prevent the regrettable incidents in Derry and Dublin. Colonel Ashley demanded martial law; Major O'Neill was for organising the loyal population; Sir Keith Fraser approved both courses and advanced the amazing proposition that the trouble in Ireland was entirely due to the religious question, and that even the Sinn Feiners were loyal to the Empire.
The Attorney-General for Ireland pointed out that faction-fighting in Derry was endemic, and drew an amusing picture of the old city, where everyone had some kind of rabbit-hole from which he could emerge to fire a revolver. As regards the general question he denied that the Constabulary had been instructed not to shoot. On the contrary they had been told to treat attackers as "enemies in the field," and to call upon suspected persons to hold up their hands.
Lord Robert Cecil was at a loss to understand the Government that applied coercion to the very people to whom it was preparing to hand over the government of Southern Ireland, and Mr. Inskip was equally at a loss to understand the policy of the noble lord, who seemed to think that conciliation was incompatible with putting down crime.
Wednesday, June 23rd.—A large company, including the Queen and Princess Mary, attended the House of Lords to see Prince Albert take his seat as Duke of York. It was unfortunate that the new peer was unable to wait for the ensuing debate, for Lord Newton was in his best form. His theme was the absurdity of the present Parliamentary arrangement under which the Peers were kept kicking their heels in London for the best months of the year, then overwhelmed with business for a week or two, and finally despatched to the country in time for the hunting season, which nowadays most of them were too much impoverished to enjoy. Lord Curzon condescended a little from his usual Olympian heights, and declared that one of the drawbacks to conducting business in that House was the difficulty of inducing noble Lords to attend it after dinner.
THE YOUNG UNIONIST MOVEMENT.
"If they were to have Home Rule at all they must 'go the whole hog.'"—Mr. Ormsby Gore.
To judge by Mr. Asquith's recent speeches outside he meant to have delivered a thundering philippic against our continued occupation of Mesopotamia. Some of the sting was taken out of the indictment by the publication of an official statement showing that Great Britain was remaining there at the request of the Allies. After all, as Mr. Lloyd George observed in his reply, it would not be an economical policy to withdraw to Basra if we were to be immediately requested to return to Baghdad.
The rest of the evening was devoted to a renewal of the protests against Mr. Churchill's "Red Army." Among the critics were Mr. Esmond Harmsworth and Mr. Oswald Mosley, the two "babies" of the House, and the Minister adopted quite a fatherly tone in recalling his own callow youth, when he too, just after the Boer War, denounced "the folly of gaudy and tinselled uniforms."
Thursday, June 24th.—On behalf of the Government Lord Onslow gave a rather chilly welcome to Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Bill for the regulation of advertisements. It is true that the noble author had explained that his object was to secure "publicity without offence," but I believe he had no desire to cramp the Prime Minister's style.
Sir Eric Geddes belongs to that wicked species of fauna that defends itself when attacked. He complained this afternoon that Mr. Asquith had in his recent speeches "trounced a beginner," but Sir Eric showed, for a novice, considerable aggressive power. He claimed that the Ministry of Transport had already saved a cool million by securing the abrogation of an extravagant contract entered into by Mr. Asquith's Government. The ex Premier, however, insisted that if a mistake had been made the Railway Department of the Board of Trade could have corrected it just as well as its grandiose successor and at an infinitely smaller cost.
Naturalised Alien. "Vy dond you ged oud of my vay? Dond you know der rule of der river?"
Bargeman. "Which? The Rhine?"