_House of Commons, Monday, May, 27._--RITCHIE back to-day, after long
absence. Changed address from Tower Hamlets to Croydon. Waiting to be
called to table by SPEAKER, had opportunity of hearing long debate round
Bill promoted by London County Council. RITCHIE, as President of Local
Government Board in last Ministry, made London County Council possible.
Happy thought to play him in, as it were, with County Council debate.
"Been out of it nearly three years now, TOBY," said RITCHIE, when, one
of a score of old members, I went to shake hands and bid him welcome;
"just the same old place; perhaps a little duller at the moment. What
they want is new blood, or, perhaps, better still, a re-infusion of old
blood. Can't give them a new County Council Bill; must try and make them
somehow sit up."
These thoughts pressed upon him as he stood at table signing Roll of
Parliament after having been sworn in. Brought his hat with him, as new
Members do, since, as yet, they have no peg to hang it on. Placed it on
table whilst he signed the Roll. Passing on to be introduced to SPEAKER,
observed with a start that there were two hats on the table. Odd. Was
sure he had brought only one. Blessed is the man who makes two blades of
grass grow where formerly only one peeped forth. Possibly analagous
benison for a man who, planting one hat down on a table, looks and
behold there are two. Happy omen; make the most of it; wouldn't do to go
off with two hats. House sure to remark it. Besides, how could he shake
hands with the SPEAKER holding a hat in either hand? Next best thing to
select the newest; did so with pretty air of abstraction; advanced one
step between table and Treasury Bench on way to SPEAKER'S chair when he
felt firm grip on his elbow, and a well known voice in his ear.
"Give me neither RITCHIES nor poverty, but do leave me my hat."
It was the voice of the SQUIRE OF MALWOOD.
"Oh, I beg your pardon. How d'ye do?" said RITCHIE, hurriedly returning
the SQUIRE'S Sunday hat, and taking up his own, which had suffered the
rigours of a wet and windy nomination day.
House cheered and laughed. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN gravely shook his head.
"That's all very well," said he. "But a man who would pander to the
lowest instincts of humanity by clearing the way for parish councils,
would do anything."
[Illustration: Ritchie Redivivus!
(From a sketch picked up near the Front Opposition Bench.)]
_Business done._--Another night's talk round Welsh Disestablishment
Bill.
_Tuesday._--Prospect of hearing JOHN WILLIAM move adjournment of House
over Derby Day, and JOHN LENG reply on other side, sufficed to crowd
benches. Such encounter of wits rarely delights mankind these degenerate
days. Such lightness of touch! Such gleaming attack! Such brilliant
defence! In short, such badinage! Such persiflage! Old Members recall
earlier conflicts in same field. Young Members look back on clever
speech made by ELCHO in moving adjournment one year, capped by equally
brilliant speech when, in the following Session, he seconded WILFRID
LAWSON on the negative course. This and all else would be excelled when
JOHN WILLIAM began to jest, and LENG made light reply.
[Illustration: _Cromwell._ "Brother JOSEPH, Brother JOSEPH, for a
Roundhead I find thee in strange company!"
"But what a pity it is that we cannot revive Oliver Cromwell in the
flesh, and not only in marble."
_Mr. Chamberlain's Speech at Birmingham, May 29._]
This was natural expectation from reputation of these famous wits. In
dreary conversation that followed there was one solitary flicker of
humour; it was discovered by anxious searcher in the circumstance that
the whole business was utterly, hopelessly prosaic. There wasn't a laugh
in it from beginning to end. House begins to think it has had enough of
this elaborate annual tourney of humour. Next year, if motion for
adjournment over Derby Day is made, it will be better to have question
put forthwith, and so divide. Another experience like the exceedingly
bad half-hour endured this afternoon is more than should fall to the lot
of a single generation.
_Business done._--House agreed by 221 votes against 174 that it could
not afford to take a holiday. Straightway proceeded to waste remainder
of sitting in vain repetition of argument round clauses of Welsh
Disestablishment Bill.
_Thursday._--Well for PRINCE ARTHUR he chanced to be absent to-night
when Cap'en TOMMY BOWLES hauled alongside SILOMIO and raked him fore and
aft. KENYON, who knows more than you think when you hear him speak,
tells me it is pretty certain when the next Government is formed SILOMIO
will have his choice of succeeding either EDWARD GREY or SYDNEY BUXTON.
Neither office is of Cabinet rank. But with the chief in the Lords, a
statesman of SILOMIO'S ability and sagacity can make and keep a position
equal in importance and influence to some more highly placed. No one
will deny that the promotion will have been well earned. The Sheffield
Knight has, perhaps, been more prominently associated with the conduct
of Colonial affairs than with those nominally directed by Lord KIMBERLEY
with the assistance of EDWARD GREY. This is a view strengthened by the
circumstance of the honourable title conferred upon him by the
emissaries from Swaziland. Actually, SILOMIO knows quite as much of
Foreign Affairs as he does of Colonial.
To-night, on Vote on Account, he concentrated his attention on the
action of the Foreign Office. Surveying its operations from China to
Peru, he was constrained unreservedly to condemn them. Everywhere the
British Minister had truckled to the foreigner. The flag of England,
which the emigrants in the _Mayflower_ proudly carried with them even in
their exile, was dragged through every gutter of foreign capitals.
"There never was a time," said SILOMIO, "when this country was so
isolated among the nations of Europe."
This grand speech echoed through nearly empty House. PRINCE ARTHUR and
his colleagues on Front Opposition Bench, as usual, paid their
distinguished colleague the highest compliment. They knew he would say
the right thing in the right way, at the right time. Whilst he kept the
gate no traitor could pass, no harm befall a beloved country. So, with
one accord, they went off, leaving CASABIANCA SILOMIO to tread alone the
deck, burning with his eloquence.
On the benches behind sat only TOMLINSON, who sometimes wishes PRINCE
ARTHUR had a little more of SILOMIO'S go; KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN who
doesn't think the Knight is quite the model of a country gentleman, but
likes to hear him shout at the Government; and Cap'en TOMMY BOWLES,
wearing his best Sunday ducks in honour of a sultry day that reminds him
faintly of breathless moments spent in the Forties in the Bight of
Benin.
[Illustration: An Authority on Heraldry!
(Mr. Eg-rt-n All-n.)]
SILOMIO sat down and mopped the shining top of his patriotic head with a
handkerchief hemmed in Germany. The Cap'en, catching the Chairman's eye
with the hook that serves in place of the strong right hand cut off by
the flashing blade of the Moor whose felucca TOMMY was boarding under
the impression it was a ferry-boat, sprang to his feet. "Unthinking
diatribes," he called SILOMIO'S noble speech; lamented the effect upon
foreign powers of its delivery "by a responsible leader of the party";
and said much else that would have shocked the House had Members chanced
to be present. PRINCE ARTHUR, who so acutely felt, and so bitterly
resented, GEORGE RUSSELL'S recent sneer at the Patriot Knight, was
spared the anguish of the moment by that carefully concerted movement
which, happily, calls SILOMIO'S colleagues off the Front Bench when he
is about to discourse on Foreign Affairs.
_Business done._--Vote on Account agreed to.
_Friday._--House met to wind up business previous to Whitsun recess.
ALPHEUS CLEOPHAS, always considerate, been thinking over ways of
enjoying the holiday. Struck him nothing would be nicer than free
admission for M.P.'s and their friends to witness process of
vivisection. Put the matter before HOME SECRETARY in his genial way.
ASQUITH very sorry, but has no power to give the desired admission.
ALPHEUS CLEOPHAS a little depressed, but went off with the consciousness
that he had at least done his best.
"There is no enterprise in these people, TOBY," he complained. "We in
London are much behind the age. We haven't here what in Paris is, I
believe, called the Mor-gew: a nice, quiet place to turn into when you
are out holiday-making. I have my own resources. When house is shut and
I can't go about the basement and cellars smelling out the oil lamps, I
sit on edge of fountain in Trafalgar Square and sniff its balmy waters.
Everyone not equally independent. If we had only about the parks and in
the thoroughfares places open to the respectable public where they might
see vivisection going on, we should be a happier nation."
_Business done._--House adjourned for the Whitsun recess. Back again
June 10.
* * * * *
Wail of the Wire-puller.
Oh dear, what can the matter be?
R-S-B-RY doesn't seem hearty.
'Tis very well winning the Derby "Blue Ribbon,"
But _that_ will not bind up--our Party!
* * *
NASRULLA KHAN.--On the Sunday immediately following his uncommonly
fatiguing first day in town, the SHAHZADA was requested to visit the
Zoo. Wire from Porcupine, who, on account of his splendid set of quills,
acts as Secretary to the Zoo Society, ran thus:--"_Will Khan visit
Zoo?_" Exhausted Receiver's reply brief but to the point, exhibiting
fine mastery of English language, "_Khan can't_."
* * *