For some days there have been rumours of an impending attack upon Lord Kitchener, to be led by Colonel Churchill. Perhaps that was why Mr. Tennant, who moved the Vote for the War Office, decided to get his blow in first. His short speech began with a jibe at his critic's strategical omniscience, though it is not true that he referred to him as "the right hon. and recently gallant gentleman"; proceeded with a denial of most of his assumptions, and ended with a high tribute to Lord Kitchener's prevision in raising a great army to cope with a long war.
Colonel Churchill did not pick up the gage thus ostentatiously thrown down, but some of his friends were less discreet, and developed a close-range assault upon Lord Kitchener. The Prime Minister is never seen to greater advantage than when he is defending a colleague, and he declared that the War Secretary was personally entitled to the credit for the amazing expansion of the army.
Unofficial tributes were not wanting. Sir Mark Sykes asserted that in Germany the War Secretary was feared as a great organiser, while in the East his name was one to conjure with; and Sir George Reid declared that his chief fault was that he was "not clever at circulating the cheap coin of calculated civilities which enable inferior men to rise to positions to which they are not entitled."
Thursday, June 1st.—In moving that the House should at its rising adjourn until June 20th, the Prime Minister felt it necessary to remove any impression that the Government, while asking everybody else to sacrifice their Whitsun holiday, were themselves going junketing.
Like Old Tom Morris, who rebuked a would-be Sunday golfer by saying "if you don't want your Sabbath rest the links do," he pointed out that the continuous sittings of the House threw a double burden not only upon Ministers—one of whom, Mr. Runciman, has unhappily broken down—but also upon the permanent officials. Even Members of Parliament, he slily added, might be under a misapprehension in supposing that constant attendance at the House was the best way in which they could discharge their duty to their country in time of war.
The Nationalist Members are doing their best to "give Lloyd George a chance." True, they ask an inordinate number of questions arising out of the hot Easter week in Dublin—when, according to the local wit, it was "'98 in the shade"—but otherwise they have sternly repressed any tendency to factiousness. Yesterday, when a freelance sought to move the adjournment of the House in order to denounce the continuance of martial law in Ireland, not a single other Member rose to support him; and to-day, though Mr. Dillon could not resist the temptation to make a speech on the same subject, he showed a refreshing restraint.
Only once—when he declared that "if you can reach the hearts of the Irish people you can do anything with them; but they will not be driven, and you cannot crush them"—did his voice approach that painfully high pitch which irreverent critics have been known to describe as "Sister Mary Jane's top-note."
Mr. Asquith in reply was sympathetic but firm. The Government were not deaf to the plea for leniency which had been addressed to them by all Irish representatives, by Sir Edward Carson as well as by Mr. Redmond. But they could not give an undertaking that there should be an end of the courts-martial. As for the persons deported from Ireland, for whom Mr. Dillon had specially appealed, it would be more humane in their own interests not to bring them to trial at once, for that would mean a crop of convictions and sentences which would increase instead of allaying the alleged irritation in Ireland.
