Then there are those humanized notes of interrogation like Mr. KING, Mr. HOGGE and Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING. They would like Parliament to be in permanent session in order that the world might have the daily benefit of their searching investigations. Mr. KING has not yet quite run into his best form. He had only six Questions on the Paper, and actually asked only five of them—a concession which so paralysed the MINISTER OF RECONSTRUCTION, to whom the missing Question was addressed, that, when asked where his department was located, he had to confess that he did not know the precise number, but it was somewhere in Queen Anne's Gate.
Eclipsed in Ireland by the more spectacular attractions of Sinn Fein, the Nationalists' only hope of recovering their lost popularity is to kick up the dust of St. Stephen's. Accordingly Mr. REDMOND gave notice of yet another Vote of Censure on the Irish Executive, but whether for its slackness or its brutality the terms of his motion do not make quite clear. Perhaps he has not yet made up his own mind on the subject.
I feel sure that Mr. MONTAGU has a sense of humour, and I admired the way in which he concealed its existence when explaining the Indian Government's release of Mrs. BESANT. As he read the VICEROY'S reference to "the tranquillizing effect of Mr. MONTAGU'S approaching visit" the House rippled with laughter; and when he proceeded to say that Mrs. BESANT had undertaken to use her influence to secure "a calm atmosphere for my visit," the ripple became a wave. But with the stoicism of the unchanging East he read on unmoved.
Mr. KENNEDY JONES, taking up the rôle of the newsboy in a recent cartoon, invited the Government to give the Germans the monosyllabic equivalent for a very warm time. Mr. BONAR LAW declined to commit himself to the actual term, but announced the intention to set up a new Air Ministry, and to "employ our machines over German towns so far as military needs render us free to take such action."
To return to Mr. Punch's question, "Why?" I think the answer most Members would make would be, "Because we wanted to see what the Ladies' Gallery would look like without the grille." It must be confessed that those who cherished visions of a dull assembly made glorious by flashing eyes, white arms, and brilliant dresses were disappointed.
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,"
wrote LOVELACE. Well, the iron bars have gone, but the stone walls remain, and make, if not a prison, something very like a purdah; and the "angels alone that soar above" are almost as much cut off from the inferior beings below them as they were before Sir ALFRED MOND came to the rescue of Beauty in thrall. He is rather disappointed at getting so little change out of his "fiver."
Wednesday, October 17th.—The latest recruit to what JOHN KNOX would have called the "monstrous regiment of Ministers" is Mr. WARDLE, lately Chairman of the Labour Party. He made a promising début. Mr. HOGGE professed to be anxious as to the future of the North-Eastern Railway, which, according to him, had lent all its "genii" to the Admiralty. Mr. WARDLE, quick to note the classical accuracy of the plural, assured him that he need be under no apprehensions—"there are still some genii left."
Ireland is to have the extended franchise conferred by the Representation of the People Bill, but not the accompanying redistribution of seats. The Chairman suggested that Sir JOHN LONSDALE, who wanted to do away with the anomaly, should move a supplementary schedule embodying his own ideas of how Ireland should be redistributed. Unfortunately—for one would have liked to see how much was left for the other three provinces after he had designed an Ulster commensurate with his notion of its relative importance—the hon. Baronet demurred to this tempting proposal, and thought it was a matter for the Government.