Obedient to the conflict; I, whose soul
was made for glorious battle, who could lead
Ten thousand thundering horsemen to the charge,
Have kept the peace, while others urged to war.
"MUMMY, WHAT'S THAT MAN FOR?"
Simultaneously Punch illustrates the growing patriotic fervour at home. Golfers are becoming shy of being detected on their way to or from the links by men in uniform. And Punch praises An Englishman's Home as a "wonderful play," in which the case for national service is presented "with rare tact, and void of offence even to the most violent anti-militarist." Indeed, he goes so far as to admit that the author's advocacy is impaired by his making the vulgar cheerful young "slacker" delightfully human, while the good young patriot is too stagey and talkative. German aggressiveness is illustrated in the cartoon showing the German sailor adopting our "Jingo" song, the copyright having expired. Editorially, though obliquely, Punch deplores the subservience of vital questions of foreign policy to party questions, and gives special praise to Sir Edward Grey. "Prenderby," who impersonates a detached view, pleads for a Coalition Cabinet—a Ministry of all the patriots. In the spring of 1909 Mr. Asquith figures as the Night Watchman who cries "All's well," but John Bull from his window replies: "So you say. All the same, I shall sit up for a bit." This was the time of the cry for more Dreadnoughts: "We want Eight and we won't wait." The vote of censure on the Government for their inadequate naval preparations was rejected by 353 votes to 135, and Punch satirized the Labour Party's idea of battleships in a pictorial representation of H.M.S. Inoffensive, Innocuous, etc. It is curious to find in another of Punch's editorial dialogues one of the speakers constantly harping on what might happen in 1914 when Dreadnoughts would be obsolete; while the happy-go-lucky attitude of the average subaltern towards a possible war is expressed in the wish attributed to one of them: "Let's hope it will come between the polo and the huntin'." Lord Roberts's National Service Bill was thrown out in the Lords in July by a narrow majority. Punch's artist is most frankly honorific to Lord Roberts; but the summary of the debate given by his Parliamentary representative is not even non-committal, for it contrives to disparage Lord Milner while emphasizing the opposition of the Duke of Northumberland and the caution of Lord Lansdowne.
Mr. Birrell as Chief Secretary
At the close of the year the impenitence of the Belgian administrators of the Congo is held up to execration in the cartoon of the slave-driver outside the European Hall of Deliberation, armed with a whip, and saying, "I'm all right. They're still talking"; while a naked slave lies helpless and prostrate in the foreground.
After a brief and ineffectual tenure of office at the Board of Education, Mr. Birrell had, whether out of heroic self-sacrifice or ignorance, accepted the most thankless and arduous of all portfolios—that of the Irish Chief Secretaryship. For the sequel, one has to turn to the Report of the Hardinge Committee of Inquiry into the Dublin revolution of Easter, 1916—one of the most lacerating public documents ever devoted to the dissection of Ministerial incompetence. But in 1909 there was, no doubt, much that appealed to Punch in the notion of setting a professional humorist to govern a quick-witted people. There never was a greater mistake. Much was and is forgiven to a Minister who amuses the House, but the legacy of hatred, faithfully cherished by those who forgot nothing but benefits received, was not to be cancelled by epigrams which provoked the facile laughter of St. Stephen's. There was, however, a probably quite unintended though extra appropriateness in the title of the verses to him as "The Right Man in the Wrong Place," for the chief ground of complaint against the Chief Secretary was that he was conspicuous by his absence from Ireland at all critical moments, and eclipsed the "Absentee landlords" at their own game. In 1909 Punch contented himself with showing Mr. Birrell as a Lecturer on Old Age Pensions as a means of allaying discontent, and reducing the method to absurdity. The boon was naturally popular, since, as Punch noted on good authority, it had been claimed and received by more than 50,000 people not qualified under the Act.