THE OPPOSITION FREAK.
"Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?" was the question one asked oneself on looking at the crowded benches of the House of Commons. It was said of a Past President of the United States that he was the politest man in America—"he gave up his seat in a street-car and made room for four ladies." The gap made on the Front Opposition Bench by the involuntary retirement of Mr. ASQUITH—to which generous allusion was made by the PRIME MINISTER—is so vast that the joint efforts of Sir DONALD MACLEAN and Mr. ADAMSON to fill it met with only partial success. Unless, by the way, Mr. SPEAKER definitely decides the problem of precedence, it is to be feared that the hoped-for acceleration of business will not occur, for at present each of them thinks it necessary to speak whenever the other does, like the hungry lions on Afric's burning shore. For all their outward politeness I am sure "the first lion thinks the last a bore"; and if they insist on roaring together much longer the House will think it of both of them.
The corner-seat whence Mr. PRINGLE flung his barbed darts at the Government is filled, physically, by Mr. STANTON. Lonely Mr. HOGGE now sits uneasily upon the Front Opposition Bench, but, fearing perhaps lest its dignified traditions should cramp his style, makes frequent visits to the Lobby.
In accordance with ancient custom Sir COURTENAY ILBERT asserted the right of the House to initiate legislation by calling out "Outlawries Bill" in the middle of the SPEAKER's recital of the Sessional Orders. Some of the new Members, I fancy, took the interruption seriously, and thought that this was the outcome of the "Punish the KAISER." movement.
The Mover and Seconder of the Address fully deserved the customary compliments. Col. Sir RHYS WILLIAMS' quiet and effective style explained his success as a picker-up of recruits; while Lt.-Commander DEAN, V.C., though he faced the House with much more trepidation than he did the batteries of Zeebrugge, got well home at the finish.
The lot of a Labour leader just now is not a happy one. Perhaps that accounted for the querulous tone assumed by Mr. ADAMSON, who seemed more concerned with the omissions in the KING's Speech than with its contents. His best sayings were imported from America, but he would have done better to content himself with LINCOLN and abjure BRYAN, whose "cross-of-gold" fustian will not bear repetition.
After Sir DONALD MACLEAN had thoughtfully provided a welcome tea interval the PRIME MINISTER rose to reply to his critics. The accusation that he had forgotten some of his recent promises, such as "No Conscription," "Punish the Kaiser," and "Germany must pay," did not trouble him much. If these election-eggs had hatched out prematurely and the contents were coming home to roost at an inconvenient moment he had no time to attend to them. What the country most needs at the moment is a firm clear statement on the Labour troubles, and that is what it got. So far as those troubles are due to remediable causes they shall be remedied; so far as the demands of Labour are based upon class-greed they shall be fought tooth and nail. There were a few dissentient shouts from the Opposition Benches, but the House as a whole was delighted when the PREMIER in ringing tones declared that "no section, however powerful, will be allowed to hold up the whole nation."
Wednesday, February 12th.—The Lords had a brisk little debate on agriculture. Lord LINCOLNSHIRE paid many compliments to Lord ERNLE for what he had accomplished as Mr. PROTHERO, but could not understand why, having exchanged the green benches for the red, he should have reversed his old policy, "scrapped" the agricultural committees and begun to dispose of his tractors. Lord ERNLE, in the measured tones so suitable to the Upper House, made a good defence of the change. The chief thing wanted now was to "clean the land," where noxious weeds, the Bolshevists of the soil, had been spreading with great rapidity. As for the tractors, the Board thought it a good thing that the farmers should possess their own, but would retain in its own hands enough of them to help farmers who could not help themselves—not a large class, I imagine, with produce at its present prices.
In the Commons an hour was spent in discussing the Government's now customary motion to take all the time of the House. Up got Mr. ADAMSON, to denounce it, now the War was over, as sheer Kaiserism. Up got Sir DONALD MACLEAN to defend it as commonsense, though he induced Mr. BONAR LAW to limit its duration to the end of March. Colonel WEDGWOOD pleaded that private Members might still be allowed to bring in Bills under the Ten Minutes' Rule; but that Parliamentary pundit, Sir F. BANBURY, asserted that there was no such thing in reality as the Ten Minutes' Rule, and pictured the possibility of whole days being swallowed up by a succession of private Members commending their legislative bantlings one after another with the brief explanatory statement permitted on such occasions. Alarmed at the prospect Mr. LAW decided not to admit the thin end of the WEDGWOOD.
The debate on the Address was resumed by Mr. BOTTOMLEY, who had a large audience. During his previous membership, terminated by one of those periodical visits to the Law Courts to which he made humorous reference, he delivered some capital speeches; and it was pleasant to find that the necessity of constantly producing "another powerful article next week" has not caused him to lose his oratorical form. His gestures are slightly reminiscent of the action of the common pump-handle, but his voice is excellent, and his matter has the merit of exactly resembling what our old friend "the Man in the Street" would say in less Parliamentary language, He has no hesitations, for example, on the subject of making Germany pay. By one of those rapid financial calculations for which he is renowned he has arrived at the comfortable figure of ten thousand millions sterling as Britain's little bill; and if you express doubts as to the debtor's capacity to pay he replies that he cannot recall any judge who made an order against him ever prefacing his judgment with an inquiry whether it would be convenient for him to find the money.
Payment in kind is Mr. RONALD McNEILL's prescription. Let Leipzig library replenish the empty shelves of Louvain and the windows of Cologne make good—so far as German glass can do it—the shattered glories of Rheims.
Mr. CLYNES warned the Government against neglecting the legitimate aspirations of Labour, one of which, he had the courage to affirm, was access to more and better beer. He also sought a clear statement of the Government's policy in Russia. This request was repeated by Sir SAMUEL HOARE, who, having spent a year and a half during the War in that distracted country, declared that "we must decide between Bolshevists and anti-Bolshevists." Unfortunately that is exactly what, according to the PRIME MINISTER's reply, we cannot do. The Allies are not prepared to intervene in force; they cannot leave Russia to stew in Her own hell-broth. The proposed Conference is admittedly a pis-aller; and, if it ever meets, no one can feel very hopeful of a tangible result from the deliberations of the Prinkipotentiaries.
Thursday, February 13th.—Labour unrest produced a capital debate, in which Mr. BRACE, Mr. THOMAS and Mr. SEXTON made excellent speeches on the one side, and Major TRYON, Mr. REMER (an employer and a profit-sharer) and Mr. BONAR LAW were equally effective on the other. Brushing aside minor causes the Leader of the House, in his forthright manner, said the root of the matter was that "Labour wants a larger share of the good things which are to be obtained in this world"—not an unreasonable desire, he indicated, but one which would not be permanently realised by strikes directed against the whole community. Mr. SEDDON, of the National Democratic Party, compressed the same argument into an epigram. If the miners' full demands were conceded they would have "an El Dorado for one minute and disaster the next."