ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
House of Commons, Monday, April 27.—"Well, I never!" said GEORGE ELLIOT, beaming on House from back bench; "have known HARCOURT man and boy for forty years; seen him in divers moods; watched him through various occupations. These have been so many that I have had time to forget he was once Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he was, and upon my word, listening to him to-night, and knowing something about figures myself, I believe he would have made a splash at the Treasury."
JOKIM doesn't enjoy performance quite so much as GENIAL GEORGE. Oddly enough, Budget Night, which ought to be the apex of comfort and glory for CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, is with him ever the season of tribulation. House of Commons is, regarded as audience, always at its best on Budget Night. Will laugh immoderately at feeblest joke uttered by CHANCELLOR; cheers to the echo his moral sentiments; sits enraptured when he soars into eloquence; and is undisguisedly grateful when he has completed his peroration. JOKIM'S muddle of Thursday night made the best of. Opposition silenced by promised legislation establishing Free Education. Everything in sunshine-glow of prosperity. Thought JOKIM might keep some of the sunbeams for himself. Then comes HARCOURT with the abhorrëd shears of facts and figures, and slits the thin-spun web of JOKIM'S ingenious fancy; shows that, instead of a surplus, he has, when honest arithmetic is set to work, a deficit; instead of increasing the rate of reduction of National Debt, he has done less in that direction than his predecessors; and that whilst expenditure on Army and Navy has exceeded any figures reached by former Chancellors of the Exchequer, the floating debt is ever growing.
JOKIM sits on Treasury Bench affecting the virtue of a smile though he has it not. Wriggles like a snail under dispensation of salt. When HARCOURT finished, HENRY FOWLER stepped in, and with fresh array of figures and new marshalling of argument, completed the demolition of JOKIM'S system of finance. Mr. G. looked smilingly on, delighting in the energy and aptitude of his Young Men. JOKIM, anxious to change the subject on any terms, tried to draw Mr. G. into the controversy. "I think not," said Mr. G., with a smile of ineffable sweetness. "Right Hon. Gentleman need not go so far afield: will have pretty tough job in answering HARCOURT."
A pretty scene; admirable Parliamentary play. Oddly enough boxes empty; stalls a wilderness; pit only half full. Energies of House so sapped with dreary flood of talk on Irish Land Bill cannot be reanimated even for a brisk battle over the Budget.
Business done.—JOKIM pummelled to pulp.