ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
House of Commons, Monday, April 21.—House really beginning to fill up. Hartington back from the Riviera. First time he has appeared this Session; lounged in with pretty air of having been there yesterday and just looked in again. Blushed with surprise to find Members on both sides welcoming him with cheer.
"We all like Hartington," said Sage of Queen Anne's Gate. "Of course we liked him better when he agreed with our opinions; but we can't all keep straight, and he's gone wrong. Still, we bear him no malice. Sorry he was ill; glad he's better. Must encourage this benevolent attitude towards him, since it enables us, with fuller vigour to denounce Chamberlain. You see, when we howl at Chamberlain, they can't say we are simply moved by personal spite, because here we are cheering Hartington as he returns to the fray."
John Dillon back too; bronzed with Australian suns; ruddy with the breezes of lusty Colorado. Everyone glad to see John back; first because everyone likes him; next for reasons akin to those which the Sage frankly acknowledges when cheering Hartington. Even in the evil days when John Dillon used to fold his arms and flash dark glances of defiance on Speaker Brand, House didn't include him in same angry, uncompromising, denunciation as hurtled round head of William O'Brien, Tim Healy, and dear old Joseph Gillis. John Dillon sometimes suspended; occasionally sent to prison; but the honesty of his motives, the purity of his patriotism, always acknowledged. Mistaken, led astray (that is to say differed from us on matters of opinion), but meant well.
The Sage.
"Yes, Toby," said the Sage, lighting another cigarette; "always well when you're going it hot for a Party to have some individual in it whom you can omit from general implication of infamous motives. Gives one high moral standpoint, doncha know. Thus, when I want to suggest that the Markiss is a mere tool in hands of Bismarck, I extol honest purposes of Old Morality; hint, you know, that he is not so sharp of perception as he might be; but that gives him the fuller claim upon our sympathy, seeing that he is yoked with a colleague of the natural depravity, and capable of the infinite iniquity, which marks the Markiss's relations with public affairs. The great thing, dear Toby, in public controversy is to assume an attitude of impartiality. When you have to suggest that a political adversary was privy to the putting-away of his grandmother, do it rather in sorrow than in anger, and if you can find or make an opportunity of saying at the same time a kind word for one of his colleagues, seize it. That's why we cheer Hartington to-night, and why the Tories sometimes admit that John Dillon's an honest man."
Business done.—Parnell moved rejection of Land Purchase Bill.