THE LITTLE HORSE.
[The following fragment is taken from the play, David Lloyd George, which we understand may some day be produced at the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith, as a companion-piece to Abraham Lincoln.]
The scene is laid in the House of Commons, where Sir Frederick Banbury has moved the rejection of the Poets and Verse (Nationalisation) Bill.
Sir Frederick Banbury is speaking.
But it stands to reason,
If you propose to pay them just the same
Whether they write a little or a lot,
They won't write anything. There will not be
Sufficient stimulus. It's human nature,
And human nature is unchangeable.
Do you imagine, Sir, that Keats or Shelley
Would have produced such valuable work,
So large an output, if this precious Bill
Had been in operation at the time?
We should have had no Shakspeare. And, besides,
It means the death of British poetry,
Because we can't continue to compete
With foreign countries.
A Labour Member. I am not a lawyer
Nor I am not a manufacturer,
But earned my bread these five-and-forty years,
Sweating and sweating. I know what sweat is....
An Hon. Member.
You're not the only person who has sweated.
Labour Member.
At any rate I sweated more than you did.
Mr. Speaker.
I do not think these constant interruptions
Are really helping us.
Labour Member. So you may take it
That what I utter is an honest word,
A plain, blunt, honest and straightforward word,
Neither adorned with worthless flummery
And tricks of language—for I have no learning—
Nor yet with false and empty rhetoric
Like lawyers' speeches. I am not a lawyer,
I thank my stars that I am not a lawyer,
And can without a spate of parleying
Briefly expound, as I am doing now,
The whole caboodle. As for this here Bill,
So far as it means Nationalising verse,
We shall support it. On the other hand,
So far as it means interferences
With the free liberty of working-men
To write their poetry when and how they like,
We will not have the Bill. So now you know.
Mr. Asquith.
It was remarked, I think by Aristotle,
That wisdom is not always to the wise;
To which opinion, if we may include
In that august and jealous category
The President of the Board of Ululation,
I am prepared most freely to subscribe.
When was there ever since the early Forties
A more grotesque and shameless mockery
Of the austere and holy principles
Which Liberalism like an altar-flame
Has guarded through the loose irreverent years
Than this inept, this disingenuous,
This frankly disingenuous attempt;
To smuggle past the barrier of this House
An article so plainly contraband
As this unlicens'd and contagious Bill—
A Bill which, it is not too much to say,
Insults the conscience of the British Empire?
I will not longer, Sir, detain the House;
Indeed I cannot profitably add
To what I said in 1892.
Speaking at Manchester I used these words:—
"If in the inconstant ferment of their minds
The King's advisers can indeed discover
No surer ground of principle than this;
If we have here their final contribution
To the most clamant and profound conundrum
Ever proposed for statesmanship to solve,
Then are we watching at the bankruptcy
Of all that wealth of intellect and power
Which has made England great. If that be true
We may put Finis to our history.
But I for one will never lend my suffrage
To that conclusion."
[An Ovation.
Mr. David Lloyd George. Mr. Speaker, Sir,
I do not intervene in this discussion
Except to say how much I deprecate
The intemperate tone of many of the speakers—
Especially the Honourable Member
For Allways Dithering—about this Bill,
This tiny Bill, this teeny-weeny Bill.
What is it, after all? The merest trifle!
The merest trifle—no, not tipsy-cake—
No trickery in it! Really one would think
The Government had nothing else to do
But sit and listen to offensive speeches.
How can the horse, the patient horse, go on
If people will keep dragging at the reins?
He has so terrible a load to bear,
And right in front there is a great big hill.
The horse is very tired, and it is raining.
Poor little horse! But yonder, at the top,
Look, look, there is a rainbow in the sky,
The promise of fair weather, and beyond
There is a splendidly-appointed stable,
With oats and barley, or whatever 'tis
That horses eat, while smiling all around
Stretch out the prairies of Prosperity,
Cornfields and gardens, all that sort of thing.
That's where the horse is going. But, you see,
The horse has got to climb the great big hill
Before he gets there. Oh, you must see that.
Then let us cease this petty bickering;
Let us have no more dragging at the reins.
What is this Bill when all is said and done?
Surely this House, surely this mighty nation,
Which did so much for horses in the War,
Will not desert this little horse at last
Because of what calumniators say—
Newspaper-owners—I know who they are—
About this Bill! No, no, of course it won't.
We will take heart and gallop up the hill,
We will climb up together to the rainbow;
We will go on to where the rainbow ends—
I know where that is, for I am a Welshman.
It is a field, a lovely little field,
Where there are buttercups and daffodils,
And long rich grass and very shady trees.
Hold on a little, and the horse will get there,
Only, I ask you, let the horse have rein.
That is my message to the British nation:
"Hold on! Hold fast! But do not hold too tight!"
[An Ovation. A Division is taken. The Ayes have it.
A.P.H.