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Page 11
[Illustration: _Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL_ (_with eye on the Air Board_).
"ANY UNIFORM SUITS ME, THANK YOU."]
In the course of the debate on the Representation of the People Bill,
Sir FREDERICK BANBURY explained that he resigned his membership of
the SPEAKER'S Conference because he found that he and his party were
expected to give up everything and to get nothing in return. If so
the Liberals on the Conference were very short-sighted, for a little
concession then would have saved them a lot of trouble now. What Sir
FREDERICK does not know about the art of Parliamentary obstruction is
not worth knowing, and he evidently means to use his knowledge for
all it is worth. He even succeeded--a rare triumph--in drafting an
instruction to the Committee which passed the SPEAKER'S scrutiny
and took a good hour to debate. In vain Sir GEORGE CAVE and Mr. LONG
reminded the House that it had already approved the main principles of
the Bill. You can't ride a cock-horse when BANBURY'S cross.
Another old hand at the game is Lord HUGH CECIL. His particular
grievance against the Bill is, I fancy, that it alters the character
of his constituency, and, should it pass, will oblige him to appeal
for the votes of callow young Bachelors with horrid Radical notions
instead of being able to repose in confidence upon the support of
a solid phalanx of clerical M.A.'s. He possesses also an hereditary
antipathy to extensions of the franchise. Lord CLAUD HAMILTON must
have thought himself back in 1867, listening to Lord CRANBORNE
attacking the Reform Bill wherewith DIZZY dished the Whigs. Lord HUGH,
like his father, is a master of gibes and flouts and jeers, and used
most of the weapons from a well-stocked armoury in an endeavour to
drill a fatal hole in the Bill.
At one moment he chaffed the HOME SECRETARY for seeking to turn the
House into a Trappist monastery, where Ministers alone might talk
and Members must obey; at the next he was reminding the House, on a
proposal to raise the age of voters, that a great many of the persons
who took part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew were under twenty-two
years of age. But though Members listened and laughed they refused,
for the most part, to vote with him. The Bill came almost unscathed
through the first day of its ordeal in Committee.
_Thursday, June 7th_.--If all the hundred and sixty-eight Questions
on the Order Paper had been fully answered the German Government would
have learned quite a number of things that it is most anxious to know,
for the Pacifist group were full of curiosity regarding the war-aims
of the Allies. Several of the most searching inquiries had to be
met by such discouraging _formul�_ as "I have nothing to add to my
previous reply," or "The matter is still under consideration."
Mr. SNOWDEN, however, learned from the HOME SECRETARY that the
Government, the House and the Country were in full sympathy with
the war-policy laid down by the French Government, and that we were
prepared to go on fighting until it was achieved. Here is something
for his colleagues to tell the Stockholm Conference, if they can get
there.
For some occult reason the word "cheese" always excites Parliamentary
merriment. Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS'S announcement that the Board of Trade
had made arrangements by which a quantity of this commodity would
be available for public use next week was greeted with the customary
laughter. Upon Army requirements, he added, would depend the quantity
to be "released." Colonel YATE was perturbed by this Gorgonzolaesque
phrase, and anxiously inquired to what species of cheese it referred.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE COMFORTER.
_Lance-Corporal_ (_in charge of footsore Tommy who has fallen out on
the march_). "YOU'VE NOTHING TO GROUSE ABOUT. YOU'RE GETTIN' YOUR
OWN BACK FROM THE GOVERNMENT. AIN'T YOU WEARIN' OUT THEIR BLINKIN'
BOOTS?"]
* * * * *
CAUTIONARY TALES FOR THE ARMY.
III.
(_Private Whidden, who ate his Iron Rations and came to an untimely
end_.)
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