In his warm welcome to the measure Sir EDWARD CARSON revealed a side
of his character not often seen, except by his personal friends.
He was so sympathetic to the needs of the Irish working-classes, so
eloquent upon the benefits to health, sobriety and contentment that
good houses would secure, and so insistent upon the necessity of
making the new dwellings beautiful as well as useful, that Mr. DEVLIN
could do little more than say "ditto to Mr. BURKE."
_Wednesday, May 16th_.--Those persons, at home and abroad, who persist
in regarding the British as universal land-grabbers will please note
that Spitsbergen, despite the undoubted fact that an Englishman landed
there three centuries ago, leaves us cold. Although no direct response
was made to Mr. ASHLEY'S suggestion that the future of the island
should be referred to the Coal Commission, it is widely felt that if
Mr. SMILLIE and Sir LEO CHIOZZA MONEY would volunteer to explore its
possibilities they would be doing the country signal service.
The drawbacks of having the Leadership of the Opposition in commission
were further exemplified when Sir DONALD MACLEAN in his most
impressive manner asked for a day to discuss Lord FRENCH'S
communications to the Press. Mr. BONAR LAW inquired if he desired to
move a Vote of Censure in his capacity as Leader of the Opposition.
"No, no," shouted the supporters of the rival claimants, Mr. ADAMSON
and Mr. GEORGE LAMBERT. Whereupon Sir DONALD altered his tone and
mildly observed that he only wanted to clear up a constitutional
point.
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.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The Muzzled One_. "TAKE MY TIP, YOUNG FELLER, AND HOP
IT--_QUICK_. THERE'S A COPPER COMING."]
* * * * *