Lord Curzon. "Lord Willoughby de Broke still remained a magnificent relic of the Old Guard."
On the steps of the Throne sat the Prime Minister, whose humility in going no higher will doubtless receive favourable comment in Welsh pulpits. He was accompanied—I will not say shepherded—by Sir Hamar Greenwood and Sir Edward Carson. What signals, if any, passed between this triumvirate and the Woolsack I cannot say, but the fact remains that, after a brief chat with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Curzon came down heavily against the motion. An adjournment would be useless unless it produced peace. But could Lord Midleton guarantee that even the most complete fiscal autonomy would satisfy Sinn Fein? If later on, when the Irish Parliaments were in operation, a demand came from a united Ireland, the Government would give it friendly consideration. Lord Midleton's motion having been rejected by eighty-six votes, and Lord Dunraven's by ninety, the Second Reading was agreed to without a division.
In the Commons a final attempt to defeat the Agricultural Bill was made by the Farmers' Party. Mr. Courthope declared that the Bill would produce only doubt and uncertainty, whereas the farmer needed confidence, a plant of slow growth (as we know on the authority of another statesman), which would not flourish under bureaucratic supervision. Sir F. Banbury said the measure must end in nationalisation, and he would prefer nationalisation—cum proper compensation, of course—straight away. The surprising statement by a Labour Member, that the farmers had subsidised the nation to the extent of forty millions a year by selling at less than world-prices, may have helped to placate their champions, who had not quite realised what generous fellows they were, for only a dozen stalwarts carried their protest into the Division Lobby.
"Learn to be independent of domestics. In four months I undertake to train any young girl of good family, and willing to learn, as a thoroughly competent and economical Plain Cook. Live in as one of family. Three maids kept. Mrs. ——."
—Church Times.
The advertiser seems to fight shy of her own medicine.
IMPROVING "HANSARD."
If Hansard would only introduce a little brightness into its bald and unconvincing narrative of Parliamentary procedure it would provide reading-matter which would grip the heart and stir the emotions, winning many new readers from the students of fiction and other light literature. Hansard will otherwise never find it worth while to organise sand-castle competitions for the little ones about its certified net sales.