The debate on Mr. HARTSHORN'S motion regarding the state of Ireland was unique of its kind in that not a single Member representing an Irish constituency took the floor; but in spite of that it produced more heat than light. Both the mover and the seconder (Mr. SEXTON) were rich in denunciation of the present Government of Ireland, but poverty-stricken in suggestions for its improvement. Lord HENRY BENTINCK seized the opportunity to make final recantation of his Unionist principles, but in default of more practical proposals was reduced to imploring the people of Ulster "to show some spirit of compromise;" and Lord HUGH CECIL in a despairing moment declared that he would sooner see three-fourths of Ireland independent than the whole of it presented with a form of Home Rule which no Irishman desired. After that one appreciated Sir KEITH ERASER'S remark, that during four years' soldiering in Ireland he had only met one man who understood the Irish Question, and he was an Englishman who had only been there a week!
Thursday, May 15th.—The intelligent foreigner who should try to disentangle the causes of Egyptian unrest from the speeches delivered in both Houses this afternoon will be rather puzzled. From Captain WEDGWOOD BENN in the Commons he would learn that it was due to the ineptitude of the British Administration, the ill-treatment of the natives by the Army of Occupation, and in particular the unsympathetic attitude adopted by Lord CURZON towards the Nationalist leaders, one of whom, according to Captain BENN, "held in Egypt a position comparable with that of Mr. Speaker here." Across the corridor at the very same moment Lord CURZON was asserting that Egypt was enjoying extraordinary material prosperity, that the British soldiery had shown wonderful restraint in very trying circumstances and that the Government had not the least desire to repress Egyptian individuality (when not too exuberant, of course) or deny to natives an ever-increasing share in the administration of their country. They would have been quite ready to listen to ZAGHLUL and his friends if they had not begun by demanding the complete disappearance of British rule. The intelligent foreigner will probably come to the conclusion that Egypt is very like Ireland—except that it has no Ulster.
General SEELY gave a fairly plausible explanation of the apparently wanton destruction of new aeroplanes that is going on at Farnborough and elsewhere. Owing to the rapid progress in aviation they were already obsolete for military purposes before they were delivered. They are quite unsuitable for civilian use, and are therefore being "reduced to produce"—a euphemism for "scrapped."
Mr. SHORTT was not in his place, but the interests of the Home Department did not suffer in the hands of the Under-Secretary. Sir HAMAR GEEENWOOD rattles out his replies with the speed and accuracy of a machine-gun, and has a neat formula for dealing with "supplementaries": "All these further Questions are covered by my original answer."
"But in course of time sympathetic Americans and the other tribes will be searching the ruins of burned-out passions and agonies, armed with the rewritten Badaeker or its Allied equivalent."—Manchester Guardian.
The re-writing seems to have begun already.
The Muzzled One. "TAKE MY TIP, YOUNG FELLER, AND HOP IT—QUICK. THERE'S A COPPER COMING."