If the Secret Sessions were intended to make smooth the way of the Military Service Bill they failed miserably in their object. Mr. Long, to whom was entrusted the task of introducing it, felt his position acutely. Only when explaining that one of the principal objects of the Bill was to extend the service of time-expired soldiers for the duration of the War did he wax at all eloquent, and then it was in lauding the chivalry of these men and in expressing his extreme distaste for the task of coercing them. The whole speech justified the poet's remark that "long petitions spoil the cause they plead."
Not a voice was heard in favour of the measure. Sir Edward Carson damned it for not going far enough, and Mr. Leif Jones because it went too far; and Mr. Stephen Walsh, as representative of the miners, who have given so much of their blood to the country's cause, bluntly demanded that the House should reject this Bill "and insist on the straight thing."
Mr. Asquith, recalled to the House by his agitated colleague, recognised that his old Parliamentary hand had got into a hornet's nest, and promptly withdrew it. To the best of my recollection this is the first time on record that a Government measure has perished before its first reading. Conceived in secrecy and delivered in pain, its epitaph will be that of another unhappy infant:—
"If I was to be so soon done for
I wonder what I was began for."
Ingenuous Maiden (on being told she is expected to milk the cow). "Oh, Mum, I dursn't without a soldier held her head."
"The Austrians thrice attempted to rush the Italian positions on the Upper Isonzo, but were repulsed with heavy lasses."
Times of Ceylon.