"Reminds me of days that are no more," said the Member for Sark, looking on animated scene from modest quarters on a back bench. "Feel thirty years younger. Am transported as by a magical Eastern carpet to times when Don José rushed about the country, fluttering his Unauthorised Programme, bearding barons in their dens, lashing out at landlords, and unceremoniously digging dukes in the ribs, what time a pack of scandalised Tories barked furiously at his heels. Lloyd George is an able man, courageous to boot, endowed with gift of turning out sentences that dwell in the memory, delighting some hearers, rankling in hearts of others. After all, he is but a replica, excellently done I admit, of the greatest work of art in the way of Parliamentary and political debate known to this generation."
The only bird that, in Mr. Tim Healy's view, requires the sympathies (if not contempt) of the Plumage Bill.
Even while Sark murmured his confidences to his neighbour they were pointed by dramatic turn in lively speech. Among charges of inaccuracy specially cited was Lloyd George's description of the Highland clearances, whereby, he asserted, "thousands of people were driven from their holdings by the exercise of the arbitrary power of the landlord." "I will give you an authority for that," he said, and proceeded to read a passage of burning eloquence, in which multitudes of hardworking, God-fearing people were depicted as driven from the land that had belonged to their ancestors, their cottages unroofed, themselves turned out homeless and forlorn.
"Who said that?" scornfully inquired an incautious Member seated opposite.
Quick came the reply. "The Right Honourable Member for West Birmingham," the Chancellor answered in blandest tones.
Followed up this neatly inserted thrust by quoting from Tory newspapers, platform and Parliamentary speeches what was said of Don José in those his unregenerate days. Some of them curiously identical with those in use just now for edification and reproof of another public man.
Business done.—Chancellor of Exchequer indicted for habitual inaccuracy, gross and unfounded personal attacks on individuals. Vote of censure negatived by 304 votes against 240.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER as seen by his opponents and by his admirers.