THE END OF THE OMNIBUS.
Conductor Addison. "A nice old mess you've been and gone and made!"
Driver Curzon. "Me? If you hadn't been so late in turning out I shouldn't have had to cut things so fine."
The Ministry of Health Bill found the Peers in a much less accommodating mood. Lord Strachie moved its rejection, chiefly on the ground of the financial strain it would impose upon local authorities, and was supported by Lord Galway, who thought it an insult to Parliament to bring forward so ambitious a measure at the fag-end of the Session. Lord Curzon vainly endeavoured to avert the coming storm by accepting a suggestion that the Bill should be carried over till next Session. The majority of the Peers were out for blood, and they defeated the Second Reading by 57 to 41. Dr. Addison, from the steps of the Throne, gloomily watched the overturn of his omnibus. It is understood that, following the example of his distinguished namesake, he is going to write to The Spectator about Lord Strachie.
So many of the Commons appeared to have anticipated the Christmas holidays that Questions were run through at a great pace. Mr. Hogge, however, was in his place all right to know how it was, after all the protestations of the Government, that an official motor-car containing an officer and a lady had been seen outside a toy-shop in Regent Street. "Mark how a plain tale shall set you down," said Mr. Churchill in effect. The officer was on his way from an outlying branch of the War Office to an important conference in Whitehall; the lady was his private secretary; the natural route of the car was viâ Regent Street, and the officer had merely seized the opportunity to pick up a parcel.
A Supplementary Estimate of six and a-half millions for the Navy gave the economists their chance. Mr. G. Lambert could not understand why we were employing more men at the dockyards than before the War, and suggested that three or four of the yards might be sold. This proposal was received with singularly little enthusiasm by most of the Members for dockyard constituencies; but Sir B. Falle (Portsmouth) handsomely remarked that Chatham might well be leased for private enterprise. The Member for Chatham was not present, or he would, no doubt, have returned the compliment.
Wednesday, December 15th.—A less adventurous Minister than Mr. Churchill might have funked the task of justifying to a House of Economists a Supplementary Army Estimate of forty millions. But he boldly tackled the job, and proved to his own satisfaction that half the liability was a mere book-entry, and the other half inevitable, in view of the Empire's commitments. Sir Charles Townshend, in a maiden speech which in the more flamboyant passages suggested the collaboration of the Editor of John Bull, announced his intention of supporting the Government "for all I am worth," and proceeded to demonstrate that their policy in Mesopotamia had been wrong from start to finish.
Thursday, December 16th.—I don't know whether the current rumours of the Prime Minister's delicacy are put about by malignant enemies who hope that Nature will accomplish what they have failed to achieve, or by well-meaning friends who desire to convince the Aberystwith Sabbatarians that Sunday golf is essential to his well-being. In his answers to Questions this afternoon he showed no signs of failing powers. When Mr. Billing accused him of breaking his pledge that there should be no more secret diplomacy he modestly replied that that was not his but President Wilson's phrase; and a little later he informed the same cocksure questioner that a certain problem was "not so simple as my hon. friend imagines most problems are."
An inquiry about the Franco-British boundaries in the Holy Land led the Prime Minister to observe that the territory delimited was "the old historic Palestine—Dan to Beersheba." It was, of course, a mere coincidence that the next Question on the Paper related to the destruction of calves, though not the golden kind.
The quarter-deck voice in which Rear-Admiral Adair thundered for information regarding the Jutland Papers so startled Sir James Craig that, fearing another salvo if he temporised with the question, he promptly promised immediate publication.