But the lapse of time is gradually bringing performance nearer to promise, and Dr. Addison was able to announce that over one hundred thousand houses were now "in the tender stage." Let us hope no bitter blast will nip them in the bud.
Wednesday, February 18th.—The Lords returned to work after their week's holiday in a rather gloomy mood. By some occult process of reasoning Lord Parmoor has convinced himself that the distress in Central Europe is largely the fault of the Peace Conference. He was supported by Lord Bryce, who declared that the "Big Four" approached the business of Treaty-making in a German rather than an English spirit (which sounds as if he thought they never meant to keep it), and by Lord Haldane, who, more suo, accused the negotiators of having shown "no adequate prevision." Lord Crawford dealt pretty faithfully with the cavillers and pointed out that this country had already spent twelve millions on relieving European distress, and was prepared to spend nearly as much again when the United States was ready to co-operate; but at present, he reminded them, that country was still in a state of war with Germany.
The one bright spot of the sitting was Lord Hylton's statement that the National Debt, which was within a fraction of eight thousand millions on December 31st, had since been reduced by eighty-five millions. The pace is too good to last, but it is something to have made a start.
For nearly four years we have been anxiously waiting to know what really did happen at the battle of Jutland. The voluminous efforts of Admirals and journalists have failed to clear up the mystery, and even Commander Carlyon Bellairs has not satisfied everybody so completely as himself that his recent work reveals the truth. But now the official history is on the eve of publication and Mr. Long no longer feels it necessary to keep the secret. Here it is in his own words: "The moral of the German fleet was very seriously shaken." What a relief!
It seems that the Turks were informed in advance of the intention of the Peace Conference to let them stay at Constantinople in the hope that they would forthwith abandon their sanguinary habits. Instead of which they appear to have said to themselves, "What a jolly day! Let us go out and kill something—Armenians for choice." So now a further message has been sent to them to the effect that the new title to the old tenement is not absolute but conditional, and that one of the covenants forbids its use as a slaughterhouse.
Mr. Austen Chamberlain (as Sidesman). "The threepenny-bit is economical, perhaps; but a desirable coin, from my point of view, it is not."
A modest little Bill empowering the Mint to manufacture coins worth something less than their weight in silver aroused the wrath of Professor Oman. The last time, according to his account, that the coinage was thus debased was in the days of Henry VIII., whose views both on money and matrimony were notoriously lax. Other Members were friendly to the project, and Mr. Dennis Herbert, in the avowed interest of churchwardens, urged the Government to seize the opportunity to abolish the threepeeny-bit, the irreducible minimum of "respectable" almsgiving. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, stoutly championed the elusive little coin, for which he declared there was "an immense demand."
On Captain Hambro's motion deploring the action of certain trade-unions in refusing to admit ex-Service men to their ranks the Labour Party heard some very straight talking. The whips of Lady Bonham-Carter at Paisley were nothing to the scorpions of ex-Private Hopkinson, who has actually been fined at the instance of the trade-unions because he insisted upon employing some of his old comrades-in-arms.
Mr. Sexton's rather maladroit attempt to shift the blame on to the employers only deepened the impression that trade-unionism is developing into a system of caste, in which certain occupations are reserved for certain people. Only an elect bricklayer, for example, may lay bricks—though anybody can heave them—and the mere fact that a man has shouldered a rifle in the service of his country in no way entitles him to carry a hod.