Tuesday, March 20th.—A long cross-examination of the representative of the Air Board produced one valuable statement which Members generally might bear in mind. Mr. BILLING asked if it was not "in the public interest or in the interests of this House" that certain contracts should be discussed. Fixing him with his eye-glass, Major BAIRD replied, "No, the interests of the House and of the public, I take it, are the same as the interests of the nation."
DEFENSIVE DUET BY MESSRS. ASQUITH AND WINSTON CHURCHILL.
If there was any lingering doubt as to the main responsibility for the inception—as apart from the carrying out—of the Dardanelles affair Mr. CHURCHILL himself must have removed it. Unlike his former chief he welcomes the publication of the Report, which in his opinion has shared among a number of eminent personages a burden formerly borne by himself alone. But his enthusiasm for the project as it originally formed itself in his fertile brain is undiminished, and he still marvels that for the want of a little further sacrifice we should have abandoned the chance of cutting Turkey out of the War, and uniting in one friendly federation the States of the Balkans.
Wednesday, March 21st.—General MAUDE'S manifesto to the people of Baghdad, with its allusions to the tyranny under which they had long been suffering, did not escape the eagle eye of Mr. DEVLIN, ever anxious to scarify British hypocrisy. So he drafted a long question to the PRIME MINISTER, embodying the most salient passages of the manifesto. Much to his disgust it appeared on the Paper without its "most beautiful and striking passages." The SPEAKER explained that he had blue-pencilled "a good deal of Oriental and flowery language not suitable to our Western climate." Not the least part of the joke is the rumour that the manifesto was largely the work of a Member of the House well versed in Eastern lore.
Thursday, March 22nd.—The Ministry of National Service, being unprovided at present with a Parliamentary Secretary, is supposed to be represented in the House by Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON. But as the Member for Barnard Castle has important functions to perform in the War Cabinet and is rarely in the House he usually deputes some other Member of the Government to answer Questions addressed to him. To-day the lot fell upon Mr. BECK, who good-temperedly explained, when a shower of "supplementaries" rained down upon him, that he really knew nothing about the Department he was temporarily representing. This led to a tragedy, for Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL worked himself into a paroxysm of excitement over this constitutional enormity, and finally sat down on his hat. "I only wish his head had been in it," muttered a brother Irishman—from Ulster.
Believers in "the hidden hand," which is supposed to paralyse our military efforts, are divided in opinion as to whether this cryptic member is most actively employed by Lord HALDANE, Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON or Sir EYRE CROWE, Assistant-Secretary to the Foreign Office. They will probably regard Lord ROBERT CECIL'S statement that some seven years ago Sir EYRE drew up a memorandum calling the attention of Sir EDWARD GREY to the grave dangers that threatened this country from Germany as further evidence of his duplicity. The rest of the world will rejoice at Lord ROBERT'S spirited vindication of "one of the ablest of our public servants," who, despite Miss CHRISTABEL PANKHURST, is not one of "the three black crows" of legendary fame.
When Sir H. DALZIEL, at the outset of his appeal to the Government to make another attempt to settle the Irish Question, promised that he would not "explore the noxious vapours of the past," I feared the worst. But he was as good as his word, and spared us any gruesome excavations in ancient Irish history. Major HILLS did even better by implying that it was only during the last ten years that the question had warped and diverted our domestic politics. If all Irishmen were as reasonable and moderate as Mr. RONALD McNEILL showed himself this afternoon it would not need settling, for it would never have arisen. He only asked, if sacrifices were necessary, that Ulster should not alone be expected to make them. Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD, as the great-grandson of a Canadian rebel who took twelve sons into the field—"almost his whole family," added his descendant—insisted that the Colonial method of securing Home Rule was the best—first agree among yourselves, and then go to the Imperial Parliament to sanction your scheme. And perhaps, after the conciliatory spirit displayed in to-day's debate, that is not so impossible oven in Ireland as it seemed a few weeks ago. Hitherto every attempt of the British Sisyphus to roll the Stone of Destiny up the Hill of Tara has found a couple of Irishmen at the top ready to roll it down again. Let us hope that this time they will co-operate to instal it there as the throne of a loyal and united Ireland.