_Tuesday, October 19th._--A start was made with half a hundred
Questions, and, considering that most of them had been in cold storage
since before the Recess, it was surprising how fresh they remained.
Persia and Mesopotamia--not to mention Ireland--are still unsettled; the
Turkish Treaty is not yet ratified; the cost of living continues to
rise, and the ratio of unemployment has alarmingly advanced, especially
in the case of ex-service men.
These last are to be found work in the building trades, with, it is
hoped, the assistance of the trade unions, but, if that hope is
disappointed, then without it. The country requires half-a-million
houses built. "Here are men who could assist," said the PRIME MINISTER,
"and we propose that they should be allowed to assist."
Over a prospect already sufficiently bleak there broods the shadow of
the coal-strike. Sir ROBERT HORNE, in presenting the case for the
Government, was admirably clear but, perhaps naturally, a little cold.
Only when the new lighting arrangement had flooded the House with
artificial sunshine did the Minister warm up a little and hint that a
way of peace might yet be found.
I wonder if it was by accident or artifice that Mr. BRACE began his plea
for the miners with the admission that they had only dropped the demand
for the reduction of fourteen shillings and twopence in the price of
domestic coal when they discovered that "the money was not there."
Anyhow the laughter that ensued served to put Members into a good temper
and to cause them to lend a friendly ear to his suggestion that the two
shillings advance, though in his view only "dust in the balance," should
be "temporarily" conceded, pending the establishment of a tribunal which
should permanently settle the conditions of the mining industry. The
increase of output which everyone desired would then be brought about.
Most of the speakers who followed seemed to think that Mr. BRACE had
sown the seed of a settlement. It was left to the PRIME MINISTER, who
evidently did not relish the task, to awaken the House from its
beautiful dream. He pointed out that to accept the proposal would be to
give the miners what they had originally claimed, without any guarantee
that the greater output would be forthcoming. If it were not forthcoming
and the two shillings were taken away, what would happen? "A strike,"
cried someone. "Precisely," said Mr. LLOYD GEORGE; only it would have
been provoked by the Government instead of by the miners. He was not
prepared to do business on those lines.
And so the debate came to an end rather than a conclusion.
_Wednesday, October 20th._--The Peers plunged into the morasses of the
Irish Question. Lord CREWE asked for an official inquiry into the
alleged "reprisals" and particularly instanced the attacks upon the
creameries. Rather than that Ireland should be "pacified" by such
methods as these he would see her engaged in civil war, "fairly
conducted on both sides." From these words it may be gathered that his
lordship's knowledge of civil war is happily not extensive.
Furnished with a voluminous brief from the Irish Office, Lord CURZON
made a long reply, the purport of which was that many of the reprisals
were bogus, many were actions undertaken in self-defence, while the rest
were generally due to men "seeing red" after their comrades had been
brutally murdered. The Government did not palliate such cases, and had
instituted inquiries and taken disciplinary action against the
offenders, when known; but they were not prepared to set up a public
inquiry such as Lord CREWE had demanded. It would only substitute "a
competition in perjury" for the present "competition in murder"--a
somewhat infelicitous phrase by which, as he subsequently explained, he
did not mean to imply, as Lord PARMOOR suggested, that police and rebels
were engaged in a murderous rivalry.
Simultaneously the House of Commons was engaged upon an identically
similar debate. Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON was as lugubrious as Lord CREWE in
presenting the indictment and distinctly less adroit in selecting his
facts. His theory was that the Government had provoked the Sinn Fein
outrages by its treatment of the people. Why, women had been prevented
from taking their eggs to market!
Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD spoke from the same brief as Lord CURZON, but threw
far more passion and vigour into its recital. There had been some
reprisals, he admitted, but they were as nothing compared to the horrors
that had provoked them; and he protested against the notion that "the
heroes of yesterday"--the R.I.C. is mainly recruited from ex-service
men--had turned into murderers. As for the creameries, he had never seen
a tittle of evidence that they had been destroyed by servants of the
Crown, and he warned the House not to believe the stories put out by the
propaganda bureau of the Irish Republican Army. He was still a convinced
Home Ruler--an Ulster hot-gospeller had accused him of being a Sinn
Feiner with a Papist wife!--but the first thing to do was to break the
reign of terror and end the rule of the assassin. That they were doing,
and there was no case for Mr. HENDERSON'S "insulting resolution."
The Opposition for the moment seemed stunned by the CHIEF SECRETARY'S
sledge-hammer speech. No one rose from the Front Bench and
Lieutenant-Commander KENWORTHY had to overcome his modesty and step into
the breach. Later on, Lord ROBERT CECIL, on the strength of information
supplied by an American journalist, supported the demand for an
inquiry. So did Mr. ASQUITH, on the ground that it would be in the
interests of the Government of Ireland itself; but this argument was
obviously weakened by Mr. BONAR LAW'S reminder that in 1913 and 1914 Mr.
ASQUITH himself had deprecated inquiries in somewhat similar
circumstances. The Government had a very good division, 346 to 79; but
there were many abstentions.
_Thursday, October 21st._--It was, no doubt, by way of brightening an
unutterably gloomy week that Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE, who has not hitherto
been known as a humourist, invited the Government to intercede at
Washington for the release of the notorious JAMES LARKIN, now
languishing in an American gaol. Inasmuch as LARKIN had been convicted
for having advocated the overthrow of the United States by violence, Mr.
HARMSWORTH did not think H.M. Government were called upon to intervene.
Mr. MALONE understood from this that the Government had no sympathy with
British subjects in foreign lands, and so he got another laugh.
Commander BELLAIRS thought it would be a good idea if the League of
Nations, pending the discharge of its more important functions, were to
offer rewards for world-benefiting discoveries such as a prophylactic
against potato-blight. Sir JOHN REES saw his chance and took it. "Does
the League," he inquired, "declare to win on Phosphates, Peace or
Potatoes?"--thus supplying proof positive that he owes his precise
pronunciation to past practice with "prunes and prisms."
It was rather impudent of Mr. ADAMSON, who has just been instrumental in
throwing out of work some hundreds of thousands of his fellow-citizens,
to initiate a debate on unemployment. Most of the speakers endeavoured
to throw the blame on "the other fellow"--the Government on the trade
unions, the trade unionists on the employers, and the employers on the
Government. A welcome exception was Mr. HOPKINSON, who boldly blamed the
short-sighted selfishness of some of his own class. Employes would not
work their hardest to "make the boss a millionaire." As a fitting
_finale_ to an inconclusive debate the PRIME MINISTER announced that in
order to force a settlement of the coal-strike the railwaymen--Mr.
THOMAS, apparently, dissenting--had threatened to join the unemployed.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Harassed Secretary._ "I SAY, YOU NEEDN'T MAKE BUNKERS,
YOU KNOW."]
* * * * *
Our Erudite Contemporaries.
"Willard was game and well trained, and in stature he was Goliath to
the Daniel of Dempsey."--_Evening Paper._
A DAVID come to judgment!
* * * * *
"The rate plague has developed to an alarming extent in Thanet, and
considerable anxiety is felt, especially as there appears to be no
effective preparation of poison to exterminate them."--_Evening
Paper._
And Thanet is not the only place.
* * * * *