_Monday, August 6th._--This being Bank Holiday and the first fine day
after a week's downpour, Members for the most part stayed away from
Westminster. Some, it is charitably supposed, have gone to look after
their allotments. Others, it is believed, have been kept away by a
different reason. The taxicab-drivers, men constitutionally averse from
extortion, have refused to enter the railway-station yards so long as
the companies persist in exacting from them a whole penny for the
privilege. Consequently some of our week-ending legislators are reported
to be interned at Waterloo and Paddington, sitting disconsolately upon
their portmanteaux. As an appeal to the Board of Trade elicited nothing
more from Mr. G. ROBERTS than a disclaimer of personal responsibility,
it is expected that redress will be sought from the Taxi-cabinet.
Mr. HENDERSON'S dual personality continues to arouse curiosity. There
was some justification for Mr. KING'S inquiry whether he went to
Petrograd as a Ministerial _Jekyll_ or a Labourist _Hyde_. Mr. BONAR LAW
assured the House that on this occasion at least Mr. HENDERSON went
purely as a Cabinet Minister, guiltless of any duplicity.
Mr. PROTHERO enlivened the discussion on the Corn Production Bill by a
new clause providing that where a farmer failed to destroy the rabbits
on his land the Board of Agriculture should have power to do it for him
and recover the expenses incurred. Sir JOHN SPEAR expected that in some
cases the rabbits secured would more than defray the cost of the
capture, and declared that unless the farmer was allowed to keep the
rabbits the Government would be guilty of "profiteering." As other
agricultural Members appeared to share this view, Mr. PROTHERO, most
obliging of Ministers, agreed to alter the word "cost" to "net cost." I
hope no litigious farmer will seek to evade his liabilities on the
ground that, as the Act only says "net cost," he need not pay for the
ferrets.
_Tuesday, August 7th._--Those peers who were supposed to be shaking in
their shoes at the thought of Lord SELBORNE'S impending revelations as
to the means by which they acquired their honours might have spared
their tremors. He opened his bag to-day, but no cat jumped out, not even
the smallest kitten. If he had given a single concrete example of a peer
who, having notoriously no public services at his back, must be presumed
to have purchased his title, he would have created some effect. But the
admission that all his information on the subject was confidential cut
the ground from under his feet; and needless to say none of the Peers
whom he hypothetically accused of buying their coronets responded to his
appeal by standing forth in a white sheet and making open confession of
his crime.
[Illustration: THE FOUNT OF HONOUR AT WORK.