ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
Monday, June 25th.—Mr. LYNCH is beginning to pine for the return of Lord ROBERT CECIL. He does not quite know what to make of Mr. BALFOUR, who politely represses his honest endeavours to elucidate the situation in Greece, and actually declared to-day that the difficulties of the Allies would only be increased by the hon. Member's attempts to deal with them piecemeal. Mr. LYNCH was not entirely done with, however. "Is that reply," he asked in a "got-him-this-time" manner, "given by reason of freedom of choice or ineludible necessity?" "Sir," replied the apologist of philosophic doubt with Johnsonian authority, "questions of freewill and necessity have perplexed mankind for ages."
The House will be delighted to welcome back to its fold Sir ROBERT HERMAN-HODGE, whose flowing moustaches, once described as "the best definition of infinity," have been, at intervals, its pride and joy for over thirty years. But it will have to wait a while, for—strange lapse on the part of a hero of half-a-dozen contests!—Sir ROBERT had omitted to bring with him the returning-officer's certificate. Lord HALSBURY, delayed by a similar accident on his first appearance in the House forty years ago, systematically turned out the contents of seemingly endless pockets and eventually discovered the missing document in his hat.
At this crisis in Ireland's affairs you might suppose that all good Nationalists would remain in their country, doing their best to make the Convention a success. Mr. DILLON prefers to attack the Government at Westminster, because it proposes to set up a Conference to consider the future composition and powers of the Second Chamber. Was it not, he asked, a breach of privilege to do this without the express consent of the House of Commons? The SPEAKER thought not, and referred his questioner to the preamble of the Parliament Act of 1911, in which such action was distinctly contemplated. Mr. DILLON, thus suddenly transported to the dear dead days before the War, when he was hand-in-glove with the present PRIME MINISTER, considers that Mr. LOWTHER is open to censure for possessing a memory of such indecent length and accuracy.
Tuesday, June 26th.—A gentle creature at ordinary times, Lord STRACHIE has been roused to unexpected ferocity by the German air-raids, and advocates a policy of unmitigated reprisals upon the enemy's cities. Had his appeal been successful he would have been recorded in history as the mildest-mannered man that ever bombed a German baby. But Lord DERBY would have none of it. British aeroplanes—of which, like every nation engaged in the War, we have none too many—shall only be employed in bombing when some distinctly military object is to be achieved.
After much consultation with the military authorities the Government has decided that to issue general warnings on the occasion of an air-raid would tend to do more harm than good; and the LORD MAYOR (teste Mr. CATHCART WASON) has announced that he will not ring the great bell of St. Paul's. The DEAN and Chapter, while regretting that Sir WILLIAM DUNN should be deprived of a health-giving exercise, had, as a point of fact, declined to countenance his contemplated invasion of their belfry.
Commander WEDGWOOD, I am sorry to observe, has almost exhausted the store of commonsense that he brought back with him from the trenches at Gallipoli. Otherwise he would hardly have championed the cause of Mrs. ANNIE BESANT, upon whose activities the Government of Madras have imposed certain salutary restrictions. What India wants, I understand, is less Besant and more Rice.
Now that young soldiers are to have votes as a reward for fighting there is logically a strong argument for taking away the franchise from those who have refused to fight. It was well expressed by Mr. RONALD MCNEILL and others, but, apart from the objections urged on high religious grounds by Lord HUGH CECIL, the Government was probably right in resisting the proposal. Parliament made a mistake in ever giving a statutory exemption to the conscientious objector. The most that person could claim was that he should not be called upon to take other people's lives; he had no right to be excused from risking his own. But having deliberately provided a loophole it is hardly fair for Parliament to inflict a penalty upon those who creep through it. And so the House thought, for it rejected the proposal by a two-to-one majority.
Wednesday, June 27th.—There is a general impression that membership of the House of Commons is in itself a sufficient excuse for the avoidance of military service. This, it appears, is erroneous. Only those are exempt whom a Medical Board has declared unfit for general service; and even these, according to Mr. FORSTER, may now be re-examined. This ought to prove a great comfort to certain potential heroes.
Thursday, June 28th.—Mr. JOSEPH KING'S chief concern at the moment is to get Lord HARDINGE removed from the Foreign Office, where he suspects him of concocting the devastating answers with which Mr. BALFOUR represses impertinent curiosity. Accordingly he raked up the old story of Lord HARDINGE'S letter to Sir G. BUCHANAN, and inquired what action the FOREIGN SECRETARY proposed to take. Mr. BALFOUR proposed to take no action. The letter was a private communication, which would never have been heard of but for its capture by a German submarine. Even Mr. KING'S own correspondence, he suggested, could hardly be so dull that everything in it would bear publication.
Mr. KING justly resented this imputation. Dull? Why, only this week his letter-bag brought him news of the great reception accorded in Petrograd to one TROTSKY, on his release from internment; and would the HOME SECRETARY be more careful, please, about interning alien friends without trial? Sir George Cave was sorry, but he had never heard of TROTSKY. There was a certain KAUTSKY, who had been interned—by the Germans. Perhaps Mr. King would address himself to them.
The MINISTER OF MUNITIONS had a good audience for his review of the wonderful work of his department. Who could refuse the chance of listening to ADDISON on Steel? I cannot honestly say that the result of this combination was quite so sparkling as it should have been, for the orator stuck closely to his manuscript and allowed himself few flights of fancy. But the facts spoke for themselves, and the House readily endorsed the verdict already given by Vimy Ridge and Messines.
"You remember that lachrymose elegiac of Tom Moore, The Exile's Lament,
—Canadian Courier.'I'm sitting on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side.'"
'I'm sitting on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side.'"
No, frankly, we don't. But we seem to have a dim recollection that Lady DUFFERIN wrote something very like it.