CHAPTER XVIII.
IRELAND'S CHARTER THROUGH.
A dull beginning.
Insipidity, weariness, and dulness marked the commencement of the concluding week of the Home Rule Bill in the House. There was no private business on the Monday, and accordingly for nearly a quarter of an hour—it seemed infinitely longer to the little group of members present—the House sat in sedate and solemn silence. Then commenced questions, and in a moment half-a-dozen members were buzzing with gnat-like pertinacity about the impassive figure of the Postmaster-General. Mr. Arnold Morley was continually on his legs. For instance, Mr. Bousfield wanted to know what rule there was which forbade Post Office employés to approach the House of Commons directly, or to sign a petition to the House with reference to any grievance, after having unsuccessfully petitioned the Postmaster-General. Mr. Morley replied laconically, "There is no such rule." Then several of the Tory members attempted to corner Sir U.K. Shuttleworth about the quantity of coals consumed in the "Majestic" while going at full speed. Sir Edward Harland was cautious, and Mr. Gibson Bowles, whose rising was the signal for derisive cheers, was pertinacious. The Secretary to the Admiralty, always dignified, was grave and serious. He was not to be tripped up, and discreetly declined to be drawn.
Our first line of defence.
It is one of the well-known peculiarities of the House of Commons that its attendance is usually in inverse line of proportion to the importance of the subject which it is discussing. On August 28th the House was engaged in debating the question which above all others ought to interest the people of this country—the state, namely, of our Navy. Yet the House was almost entirely empty throughout the whole evening, and the speeches were generally confined to the somewhat inarticulate representatives of the services, and to the dullest and smallest men in the whole assembly. It is obviously inconvenient—perhaps it is even perilous—that interests so grave and so gigantic should fall for their guardianship into hands so incompetent and so petty. It may be an inevitable accompaniment of our Parliamentary system that the naval debates should be so conducted; if so, one must put it down as one of the evils which must be taken as part of the price we pay for the excellences of a representative system.
Sir Edward Reed as an alarmist.
I may dismiss the debate on the Navy with one or two further observations. Sir Edward Reed, though he knows a good deal about ships—for he has had something to do with them all his life—is not an authority whom one can implicitly accept. He is not a politician who has prospered according to what he believes and what are doubtless his deserts, for he is a very clever man, and politicians who are a little disappointed have a certain tendency to ultra-censoriousness, which damages the effectiveness and prejudices the authority of their criticisms. Thus, Sir Edward has been always more or less of a pessimist with regard to the doings of other men. On August 28th he spoke in decidedly alarmist terms of the lessons which should be taught to us by the loss of the "Victoria." Speaking with the modesty of a mere layman on the subject, I should have been inclined to think that the chief moral to be drawn from that terrible and tragic disaster was the terribly important part which the mere personality of the individual in command still plays in deciding the fate of hundreds of lives; that, in short, the personal equation—as it has come to be called—- is still the supreme and decisive factor in all naval enterprises. But there may be some grounds for the alarmist views of Sir Edward Reed, and I see no reason why his views should not receive prompt, candid, and independent investigation. The officials may oppose such an investigation; but officials are always optimists, and the cold draught of outside criticism does them an immense deal of good.