_Monday, March 19th._--Captain BATHURST announced that the FOOD CONTROLLER
would issue an order fixing the retail price of swedes at a figure
involving a reduction of "something like 200 per cent." The FOOD
CONTROLLER, as his faithful henchman subsequently remarked, "is always
doing his best," but if he can really reduce the price of a commodity to
100 per cent. less than nothing I hope he will not confine his activity to
a solitary vegetable.
I am afraid that envy was the predominant feeling aroused by Mr. SNOWDEN'S
story of the family in New Cavendish Street which secured in a single order
from a single firm no less than sixty-three pounds of sugar. Lest any Hon.
Members should be tempted to try and do likewise Captain BATHURST promptly
announced that another order prohibiting hoarding would shortly be issued.
The House cheered, for, as a journalist Member remarked with gloomy
satisfaction, "It is only fair that 'no posters' should be followed by 'no
hoarding.'"
The PRIME MINISTER paid one of his angelic visits to the House to give the
latest information of the revolution in Russia. His description of it as
"one of the landmarks in the history of the world" evoked loud cheers, but
even louder were those which came from the Nationalist benches when he
remarked that "free peoples are the best defenders of their own honour."
_Tuesday, March 20th._--A long cross-examination of the representative of
the Air Board produced one valuable statement which Members generally might
bear in mind. Mr. BILLING asked if it was not "in the public interest or in
the interests of this House" that certain contracts should be discussed.
Fixing him with his eye-glass, Major BAIRD replied, "No, the interests of
the House and of the public, I take it, are the same as the interests of
the nation."
[Illustration: DEFENSIVE DUET BY MESSRS. ASQUITH AND WINSTON CHURCHILL.]
If there was any lingering doubt as to the main responsibility for the
inception--as apart from the carrying out--of the Dardanelles affair Mr.
CHURCHILL himself must have removed it. Unlike his former chief he welcomes
the publication of the Report, which in his opinion has shared among a
number of eminent personages a burden formerly borne by himself alone. But
his enthusiasm for the project as it originally formed itself in his
fertile brain is undiminished, and he still marvels that for the want of a
little further sacrifice we should have abandoned the chance of cutting
Turkey out of the War, and uniting in one friendly federation the States of
the Balkans.
_Wednesday, March 21st._--General MAUDE'S manifesto to the people of
Baghdad, with its allusions to the tyranny under which they had long been
suffering, did not escape the eagle eye of Mr. DEVLIN, ever anxious to
scarify British hypocrisy. So he drafted a long question to the PRIME
MINISTER, embodying the most salient passages of the manifesto. Much to his
disgust it appeared on the Paper without its "most beautiful and striking
passages." The SPEAKER explained that he had blue-pencilled "a good deal of
Oriental and flowery language not suitable to our Western climate." Not the
least part of the joke is the rumour that the manifesto was largely the
work of a Member of the House well versed in Eastern lore.
_Thursday, March 22nd._--The Ministry of National Service, being unprovided
at present with a Parliamentary Secretary, is supposed to be represented in
the House by Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON. But as the Member for Barnard Castle has
important functions to perform in the War Cabinet and is rarely in the
House he usually deputes some other Member of the Government to answer
Questions addressed to him. To-day the lot fell upon Mr. BECK, who
good-temperedly explained, when a shower of "supplementaries" rained down
upon him, that he really knew nothing about the Department he was
temporarily representing. This led to a tragedy, for Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL
worked himself into a paroxysm of excitement over this constitutional
enormity, and finally sat down on his hat. "I only wish his head had been
in it," muttered a brother Irishman--from Ulster.
Believers in "the hidden hand," which is supposed to paralyse our military
efforts, are divided in opinion as to whether this cryptic member is most
actively employed by Lord HALDANE, Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON or Sir EYRE CROWE,
Assistant-Secretary to the Foreign Office. They will probably regard Lord
ROBERT CECIL'S statement that some seven years ago Sir EYRE drew up a
memorandum calling the attention of Sir EDWARD GREY to the grave dangers
that threatened this country from Germany as further evidence of his
duplicity. The rest of the world will rejoice at Lord ROBERT'S spirited
vindication of "one of the ablest of our public servants," who, despite
Miss CHRISTABEL PANKHURST, is not one of "the three black crows" of
legendary fame.
When Sir H. DALZIEL, at the outset of his appeal to the Government to make
another attempt to settle the Irish Question, promised that he would not
"explore the noxious vapours of the past," I feared the worst. But he was
as good as his word, and spared us any gruesome excavations in ancient
Irish history. Major HILLS did even better by implying that it was only
during the last ten years that the question had warped and diverted our
domestic politics. If all Irishmen were as reasonable and moderate as Mr.
RONALD MCNEILL showed himself this afternoon it would not need settling,
for it would never have arisen. He only asked, if sacrifices were
necessary, that Ulster should not alone be expected to make them. Sir HAMAR
GREENWOOD, as the great-grandson of a Canadian rebel who took twelve sons
into the field--"almost his whole family," added his descendant--insisted
that the Colonial method of securing Home Rule was the best--first agree
among yourselves, and then go to the Imperial Parliament to sanction your
scheme. And perhaps, after the conciliatory spirit displayed in to-day's
debate, that is not so impossible oven in Ireland as it seemed a few weeks
ago. Hitherto every attempt of the British Sisyphus to roll the Stone of
Destiny up the Hill of Tara has found a couple of Irishmen at the top ready
to roll it down again. Let us hope that this time they will co-operate to
instal it there as the throne of a loyal and united Ireland.
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