ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
A GOVERNMENT RECRUIT.
Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.
Monday, October 25th.—Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame, the newest recruit on the Treasury Bench, already answers Questions with all the assurance of the other Lloyd G. His readiness in referring the inquisitive to other Departments and in declining to go beyond his brief—witness his modest refusal to discuss in reply to a Supplementary Question the possibility of imposing a tariff in this country—suggests that somewhere behind the Speaker's chair there must be a school for Under-Secretaries where the callow back-bencher is instructed in the arts and crafts required in the seats of the mighty.
For this purpose I can imagine no better instructor than the Attorney-General, who combines scrupulous politeness with an icy precision of language. Take, for example, his treatment of Mr. Pemberton Billing's defiant inquiry if it would now be "compatible with the dignity of the Government" to say that there had never been any intention to bring the War-criminals to trial. "No," replied Sir Gordon Hewart in his most pedagogic manner, "it cannot be compatible with anyone's dignity to make a statement which is manifestly untrue."
SOMETHING "SUBSTANTIAL."
Mr. Will Thorne.
This week was to have been devoted, de die in diem, to getting on with the Government of Ireland Bill. But the malignant sprite that has hitherto foiled every effort to pacify Ireland again intervened, and the House found itself called upon to discuss the Emergency Powers Bill. The measure is a peace-time successor to D.O.R.A. (who in the opinion of the Government is getting a little passée) and, perhaps naturally, met with little approval. Mr. Asquith, while admitting that something of the kind might be required, took exception to the vagueness of its drafting. "What is 'substantial'?" he inquired. "Ask them another!" Mr. Will Thorne joyfully interjected. "What is 'substantial'?" repeated the ex-Premier; whereupon the Coalition with one voice replied, "Will Thorne."
With consummate skill the Prime Minister managed to get the House out of its hostile mood and to satisfy the majority, at any rate, that the measure was neither provocative nor inopportune, but a necessary precaution against the possibility that "direct action" on the part of extra-Parliamentary bodies might confront the country with the alternatives of starvation or surrender.
Tuesday, October 26th.—In these troublous times the House gladly seizes the smallest occasion for merriment. There was great laughter when Colonel Yate, the politest of men, inadvertently referred to Sir Archibald Williamson as "the right honourable gent," and it broke forth again when, in his anxiety to make no further slip, he addressed him tout court as "the right honourable."
There are some fifty thousand British soldiers in Ireland, costing over a million pounds a month. But Mr. Churchill took the cheery view that after all they had to be somewhere, and would cost nearly as much even in Great Britain.
THE BOLD BAD BARON.
Sir Gordon Hewart. "Merely a framework—quite useless without a rope."
They would cost a good deal more in Mesopotamia, where we have a hundred thousand troops (British and Indian), and the cost is two and a half millions a month. Sir William Joynson-Hicks could not understand why we should spend all this money "merely to hand the country back to the rebels." Mr. Churchill said he had heard nothing about handing the country back to the rebels; from which it may be inferred either that he is not admitted into all the secrets of the Cabinet or that he draws a distinction between "rebels" and "persons who object to British rule."
The Press campaign in favour of a nickel three-halfpenny coin has not succeeded. In Mr. Chamberlain's opinion it would not be a coin of vantage. Among his objections to it may be the extreme probability that the present Administration would promptly be nicknamed (I will not say nickel-named) "the Three-half-penny Government."
Owing to a number of concessions announced by the Home Secretary the Emergency Powers Bill had a fairly smooth passage through Committee. Objections were still raised to making an Emergency Act permanent—it does sound rather like a contradiction in terms—but the Attorney-General skilfully countered them by pointing out that it was only the framework of the machinery, not the regulations, that would be permanent. One can imagine the bold bad baron who set up a gallows to overawe his villeins comforting objectors with the remark that after all it was merely a framework—quite useless without a rope.
A PILLAR OF THE CHURCH.
Wednesday, October 27th.—Much pother in the Lords because the First Commissioner of Works had set up a Committee to advise him with regard to the preservation of ancient monuments, including cathedrals and churches, without first consulting the ecclesiastical authorities. Lord Parmoor moved a condemnatory resolution, and His Grace of Canterbury, after renouncing Sir Alfred Mond and all his works, declared that, so far as religious edifices were concerned, the proposed Committee was a superfluity of naughtiness with which he personally would have nothing to do. Lord Lytton, with that delightful free-and-easiness which characterises the attitude of our present Ministers towards their colleagues, observed that he could have sympathised with the objectors if it were really intended to place cathedrals under Sir Alfred's care; but it wasn't;—so why all this fuss? Lord Crawford, while sharing the Opposition's dislike of restorers, from Viollet-le-Duc to the late Lord Grimthorpe, could not admit that in this matter the Office of Works had been guilty of anything worse than a want of tact. Lord Parmoor insisted on going to a division, and carried his motion by 27 to 17. Despite this shattering blow the Government is said to be going on as well as can be expected.
What happened at Jutland? After four years' cogitation the Admiralty does not appear to have emerged from the state of uncertainty into which it was plunged by the first news of the battle. In February last Mr. Long announced that the official report would be published "shortly," but then the German sailors began to publish their stories, and these not very unnaturally differed from the British accounts. So now My Lords have decided to leave Sir Julian Corbett's Naval History of the War to unravel the tangle and inform Lords Jellicoe and Beatty (who, according to Sir James Craig, are quite agreeable to the proposal) exactly what they and their gallant seamen really did on that famous occasion.
Thursday, October 28th.—There being no Labour Party in the House of Lords the Emergency Powers Bill passed through all its stages in a single sitting. Even Lord Crewe did not challenge its necessity in these troublous times, but Lord Askwith was a little alarmed at the possibility that "an unreasoning Home Secretary"—as if there could ever be such a monster!—might be over-hasty to issue Orders in Council, and so exacerbate an industrial dispute.
A long list of "reprisal" Questions—mercifully curtailed by the time-limit—was chiefly remarkable for Sir Hamar Greenwood's emphatic declaration that he was not going to accept the statements even of English newspaper correspondents against the reports of officials "for whom I am responsible and in whom I have confidence."
Assuming that the House of Commons is, as it ought to be, a microcosm of the population, it will be some time before this country goes "dry." Members of all parties pressed upon the Prime Minister the necessity of relaxing the regulations of the Liquor Control Board. His suggestion that an informal Committee should be set up to make recommendations to the Government was received with cheers, and there was much amusement when Mr. Bottomley and Lady Astor, who do not, I gather, quite see eye to eye on this subject, promptly nominated themselves for membership.
As the Prime Minister is popularly supposed to be not averse from appearing in the limelight, especially when there is good news to impart, it is pleasant to record that he left to Sir Robert Horne the congenial task of announcing that an agreement had been reached with the Miners' Federation, and that the coal-strike was on the high road to settlement. The terms, as stated, seemed to be satisfactory to all parties, and the only mystery is why the negotiators should have required the stimulus of a strike before they could arrive at them.