ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
Tuesday, April 25th.—The Government, which has sometimes been accused of not having sufficient confidence in the House of Commons, has made ample amends. Information about the Army, too grave to be imparted to the people who provide the men and the means for maintaining it, is to be freely given to four or five hundred Members of Parliament (not to mention a similar number of Peers).
The Prime Minister opened the Secret Session in one of his briefest speeches. "Mr. Speaker," he said, "I beg, Sir, to call your attention to the fact that strangers are present." The historic form of this advertisement, "I spy strangers;" is briefer still, but inadmissible in these ticklish times. One does not want to see, in the enemy Press, "British Prime Minister confesses to spying."
Then the Press Gallery was cleared, and the Great Inquest of the Nation became a Vehmgericht. The wretched scribe who should attempt to peer behind the veil that shrouds its proceedings has been warned in advance of the unnamed pains and penalties that await him if he should venture to describe or even "refer to" the proceedings of the Secret Session. I am unable to say, therefore, whether it is true that the occupants of the Treasury Bench forthwith donned helmets and gas-masks to protect themselves from the fiery darts and mephitic vapours launched at them from above and below the Gangway.
On these picturesque details the official report, compiled by Mr. Speaker, who is understood to have seized the opportunity offered by his recent stay at Bath to learn Pitman's shorthand, is unfortunately silent.
All we learn from its severely restrained pages is that the Prime Minister made a long statement about recruiting. From this we gather that if fifty thousand of the unattested married men do not enlist before the end of May they will be compelled to do so; and that altogether the Government will insist on getting 200,000 men from this source. The German General Staff will be surprised to learn that our requirements are so modest, and will wonder, as we do, what all the pother is about.
Perhaps Mr. Lowther did not take notes of the other speeches that were delivered. At any rate he gives us no indication of their drift. All we know is that in the course of some seven hours no fewer than sixteen Members addressed the House. From this it may be inferred that the absence of reporters has at least the negative advantage of conducing to brevity of utterance. May we also infer that the speaking was as plain as it was brief, and that for the time being the Palace of Westminster has become the Palace of Truth?
