MR. ASQUITH IS DEEPLY STIRRED.
Until Colonel Leslie Wilson moved the Second Reading of the Nauru Island Agreement Bill I don't suppose a dozen Members of the House of Commons had ever heard of this tiny excrescence in the Western Pacific with its wonderful phosphate deposits. Captured from the Germans during the War, it is now the charge of the British Empire, and the object of the Bill was to confirm an arrangement by which the deposits should be primarily reserved for the agriculturists of Australasia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It produced a debate of extraordinary ferocity. Young Tories like Mr. Ormsby-Gore vied with old Liberals like Mr. Asquith (on whom the phosphates, plus the Louth election, had a wonderfully tonic effect) in denouncing the iniquity of an arrangement by which (as they said) the principles of the League of Nations were being thrown over, and this country was revealed as a greedy monopolist. Thus assailed both by friend and foe Mr. Bonar Law required all his cool suavity to bring the House back to a sense of proportion, and to convince it that in securing a supply of manure for British farmers the Government were not committing a crime against the comity of nations.
Answering questions for the Irish Government in these days is rather a melancholy business, but the Attorney-General for Ireland resembles Dr. Johnson's friend, in that "cheerfulness will keep breaking in." Thus he excused the Government's non-interference with the Sinn Fein "courts," whose writ now runs over half Ireland, on the ground that for all he knew they might be voluntary courts of arbitration; and when Major O'Neill expressed the hope that he would at least take steps to protect the British public from the criminals "transported" by sentence of these mysterious tribunals he blithely disclaimed responsibility, and said he was quite content that they should be out of Ireland.
Considering the counter-attraction of the Ascot Gold Cup, Mr. Balfour had a surprisingly numerous audience for his discourse on the League of Nations. His enumeration and analysis of the League's various enemies were in his happiest vein of philosophical humour. His conclusion was that the League had much less to fear from its avowed foes than from its fanatical friends, who were already attempting to put upon it tasks for which it was unfitted, and even to supply it with an International Police Force. Its proper weapons were not armies and aircraft, but Delay and Publicity.
This formula, so reminiscent of Wait and See, did not prevent Mr. Asquith from hinting in the politest manner that the League was not likely to prevent the wars of the future unless it made some effort to stop those now in progress.
Nephew (after several hair's-breadth escapes). "Not feeling nervous, are you, Auntie?"
Aunt. "I am, rather. You see, this is only my third experience of a motor-cycle."