A few noble lords tore themselves away from these entrancing topics to
attend the opening of the debate in the Commons on the Government of
Ireland Bill. They were ill-rewarded for their pains, for never has a Home
Rule debate produced fewer interesting moments. The CHIEF SECRETARY was so
studiously restrained in explaining the merits of the Bill that the
"yawning chasm" which, according to its opponents, the measure is going to
create between Southern and Northern Ireland was to be observed in advance
on the countenances of many of his listeners. Years ago Mr. BALFOUR told
the Irish Nationalists that Great Britain was not to be bored into
acceptance of Home Rule; but I am beginning to doubt now whether he was
right. If the Government get the Bill through it will be due more to John
Bull's weariness of the eternal Irish Question than to any enthusiastic
belief in the merits of this particular scheme. Hardly anyone off the
Treasury Bench had a good word to say for it, but fortunately for its
chances their criticisms were often mutually destructive.
Mr. CLYNES moved its rejection. From his remark that Irish respect for the
law was destroyed in 1913, and that the present Administration was regarded
as "the most abominable form of government that had ever ruled in Ireland,"
I should gather that he has only recently begun his researches into Irish
history and Irish character, and is working backwards. His prescription was
to cease governing Ireland by force and leave her to frame her own
constitution.
Lord ROBERT CECIL agreed with Mr. CLYNES in regarding it as a very bad
Bill, but there parted company with him. In his view the deterioration of
Ireland began in 1906, when the era of "firm government" came to an end.
Drop coercion by all means, but "let the murderers begin." As for forcing
self-government on a country that rejected it, that was nonsense.
As "a citizen of the world," and not merely an Irishman, Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR
denounced the Bill _urbi et orbi_. Nobody in Ireland wanted it unless it
was the place-hunters of the Bar and the Press, for whom it would provide
rich pickings.
The House was brought back from rhetoric to plain fact by the CHANCELLOR OF
THE EXCHEQUER'S reminder that if the Bill were not passed the Home Rule Act
of 1914 would come into force. He hoped that Southern Ireland would recover
its sanity, accept the Bill and set itself to persuade Ulster into an
All-Ireland Parliament _via_ the golden bridge of the Irish Council.
Captain CRAIG could not imagine that happening in his lifetime. To his mind
the only merit of the Bill was that it safeguarded Ulster against Dublin
domination.
_Tuesday, March 30th._--Someone--I suspect a midshipman--has been telling
Mr. BROMFIELD that five British Admirals have been sent to Vienna to
supervise the breaking up of the Austrian Fleet, and that the said Fleet
now consists of three motor-boats. He was much relieved to hear from Mr.
HARMSWORTH that only one Admiral had been sent, and that the disposal of a
Dreadnought, several pre-Dreadnoughts and sundry smaller craft will give
him plenty to do.
There appears to be a shortage of ice in Hull. It is supposed that the
Member for the Central Division (Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY) has not cut so
much as he expected.
The debate on the Home Rule Bill was resumed in a much higher temperature
than that of yesterday. Mr. ASQUITH, as he thundered in carefully-polished
phrases against the "cumbrous, costly, unworkable scheme," earned many
cheers from his followers, and the even greater tribute of interruptions
from his opponents. For a moment he was pulled up, when to his rhetorical
question, "What has Home Rule meant to us?" some graceless Coalitionist
promptly answered, "Votes!" but he soon got going again. Ireland, he
declared, was a unit. The Bill gave her dualism "with a shadowy background
of remote and potential unity." The vaunted Council was "a fleshless and
bloodless skeleton." He remarked upon "the sombre acquiescence of the
Ulstermen," and wondered why they had accepted the Bill at all. "Because we
don't trust _you_," came the swift reply from Sir EDWARD CARSON.
Mr. ASQUITH'S own remedy for Irish unrest was to take the Act of 1914 and
transform it into something like Dominion Home Rule. Any county--Ulster or
Sinn Fein--that voted against coming under the Dublin Parliament should be
left under the present administration.
Mr. BONAR LAW did not fail to point out the inconsistency of condemning the
Government scheme for its complexity and then immediately proposing another
which would involve not one but a dozen partitions and make the political
map of Ireland look like a crazy quilt. He advised the House to reject Mr.
ASQUITH'S advice and pass the Bill, even though it should have the
paradoxical result, for the moment, of leaving Nationalist Ireland under
British administration while providing Unionist Ulster with a Home Rule
Parliament for which it has never asked.
I suppose Mr. DEVLIN is not like the Sinn Feiners, who, according to "T.
P.," are so contemptuous of the Bill that they have never read a line of
it. Parts of his speech, and particularly his peroration, seemed far more
suitable to a Coercion Bill than to a measure which is designed, however
imperfectly, to grant Home Rule to Ireland. The Nationalist leader may be
forgiven a great deal, however, for his inimitable description of Lord
ROBERT CECIL as "painfully struggling into the light with one foot in the
Middle Ages."
_Wednesday, March 31st._--The third and last Act of the Home Rule drama was
the best. Nothing in the previous two days' debate--not even Mr. BONAR
LAW'S ruthless analysis of the Paisley policy for Ireland--gripped the
audience so intensely as Sir EDWARD CARSON'S explanation of the Ulster
attitude. He declared that the Union had not failed in Ulster, and would
not have failed anywhere if British politicians could have refrained from
bidding for Irish votes. There was no alternative to it but complete
separation, and that was what Home Rule would lead to. Ulster did not want
the Bill, and would not vote for it; but, as the only alternative was the
Act of 1914, she was prepared to accept it as a _pis aller_, and to work
her new Parliament for all it was worth. At least it would enable her to
find schools for the thirty thousand Belfast children now debarred from
education. More than that, he was prepared to co-operate with any men from
Southern Ireland who were willing to work _their_ Parliament in a similar
spirit; and he paid a personal tribute to Mr. DEVLIN, whose courage he
admired though he detested his politics.
Thus there were gleams of hope even in his otherwise gloomy outlook, as the
PRIME MINISTER gladly acknowledged in winding up the debate; and they
probably had some influence in swelling the majority for the Bill, the
figures being 348 for the Second Reading, 94 against.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "PLEASE, MISTER, CAN I HAVE A PENNORTH OF CAMEL?"]
* * * * *
_POISSON D'AVRIL._
For the tragedy of which I am about to tell I consider that Brenda Scott is
entirely to blame. You shall judge.
There is a vacancy in my domestic staff, and the rush to fill it has been
less enthusiastic than I could wish. My housewifely heart leapt, therefore,
when, last Thursday morning, I espied coming up the drive one whom I
classed at once as an applicant for the post of housemaid. Nor was I
deceived. She gave the name of Eliza Smudge, and said she came from my
friend, Mrs. Copplestone.
My suspicions were first aroused by her extraordinary solicitude for my
comfort. "Outings" were entirely according to my convenience. And when she
added that she liked to have plenty to do, and that she always rose by 6
A.M., I began to look at her closely.
She wore a thick veil, and her eyes were further obscured by large
spectacles, but I could discern a wisp of rather artificial-looking hair
drawn across her forehead. And she was smiling.
Now why was she smiling? I could certainly see nothing to smile at in
rising at six o'clock every morning.
"I shall be free on 5th of April, ma'am," she was saying. "Let me see,
to-day is the 1st of April----"
The 1st of April! It came to me then in a flash--in one of those moments of
intuition of which even the mind of the harassed housewife occasionally is
capable. It was Brenda Scott masquerading as a housemaid!
Our conversation of a fortnight earlier came back to me--Brenda's desire to
disguise herself and apply to Lady Lupin for the post of kitchenmaid, her
confidence in her ability to carry it off successfully, my ridicule of the
possibility that she could pass unrecognised. So now, on the 1st of April,
she was for proving me wrong.
The disguise was certainly masterly. Had it not been for that unaccountable
smile, and the hair----
I did not lose my head. I continued to carry on the conversation on
orthodox lines. Then I said, "Do you know Miss Brenda Scott, who lives near
Mrs. Copplestone?"
"Oh, yes, I've known her since she was a little girl," was the answer.
"Sweet young lady she is."
"Ye--es," I said. "A little too fond of practical jokes, perhaps."
The eyebrows went up almost to the artificial-looking hair, which I had now
decided was horse-hair.
"Indeed," she said.
"Yes, my dear Brenda, it is your besetting sin. You should pray against
it," I said bluntly.
She stood up with an opposing air of surprise and alarm. But I was not to
be deceived.
"Your assumed name, Eliza Smudge," I said, "gave you away at the start. And
that hair--it is the tail of your nephew's rocking-horse, isn't it?
And----"
But she had fled from the room and was scudding down the drive, heedless of
my cries of "Brenda, you idiot, come back!"
* * * * *
As I watched from the front-door I saw that "Eliza Smudge" had met another
woman in the lane and had engaged her in conversation.
Then they parted, and the other woman came in at the gate and up the drive.
"My dear Elfrida," said a well-known voice, "what have you been up to? You
seem to have thoroughly upset that nice woman who was with the Copplestones
so long. She told me you were a very strange lady; in fact she thought you
must be suffering from a nervous breakdown."