Chapter XI: Act III (2)

You seek out your Whip, demanding information. He tells you that the Government has changed its mind about the Bill on which you were to speak, and intends, in its place, to introduce an Amending Act in connection with the Acquisition of Mineral Royalties in Zanzibar, Proclamation of 1872. Having no knowledge whatever of Zanzibar or minerals, other than those in bottles, and only a nodding acquaintance with the lesser grades of royalty, you feel bound to demur, when he suggests that you should “give tongue” at such short notice on this subject. Whereupon he offers you your choice between the Protection of Herrings (Scotland) Bill, Second Reading; the Civil Service and Revenue Departments (grants in respect of medical referees, destitute aliens, and port and riparian sanitary authorities) Vote on Account; and the Army and Air Force Annual Bill. Smitten with despair at the prospect of the vigils, prayer and fasting entailed in the mastery of any one of these three subjects, and fortified by a hazy recollection of “King Solomon’s Mines,” you quaveringly ask whether it would not be possible for you to speak on the Witch Doctors Adjournment. As your Whip has been searching high and low for someone to do this very thing, he almost invites you to dinner in his relief; and hurries away with your name to the Speaker. In due course he seeks you out in the Library, where you are sitting, in a cold perspiration at your own temerity, and struggling to master a report on “Witchcraft and the Black Arts as practised in the Continent of Africa,” furnished through the medium of the Aborigines Suppression Society in 1850--apparently the only standard work on the subject. He informs you that you will be called immediately after the Government has replied. Your heart sinks into your boots; a clammy sweat breaks out upon your forehead; and you apply yourself assiduously to the report.

Just before 8.15 p.m. you stagger into the Chamber. To your excited fancy it seems to have grown very large. The seat on which you are accustomed to sit, seems an immense distance from the Speaker’s Chair. But, as the House is practically empty, you sneak into somebody’s corner seat, and hope for the best. The one encouraging factor in the whole proceedings is that, in spite of the ghastly hash that the mover of the resolution seems to be making, the patient House is attentively listening in silence. After all, you think, remembering your own triumphant speeches during the election, the swing of the words, the thrill of the audience, the storm of applause--after all, it can’t be as difficult as all that.... An Under-Secretary begins a half-hearted defence of the Government. He says he is quite certain that in this case the House will consider that the House ought to be extremely careful before responding to the suggestion made by his hon. and gallant friend that the House is at liberty to vary a former decision of that House, as hon. members below the gangway seem to imagine. He goes on to say, er--that the Government--er--will, of course, be ruled--er--or perhaps he ought to say guided--er--by the view of the House towards--er--or with regard to the matter--assuming that in that matter or--er--as he would rather put it, in such questions--er--the opinion of the House must be the governing consideration. Furthermore, he would remind the House, with the permission of the House, that the House is always reluctant to set aside a privilege won by the House in former times and upheld on the floor of the House by statesmen like Drigg and Bulgman with the full approval of the House--an approval, Mr. Speaker, which, as the House is aware, is recorded in the journals of the House, and which he is satisfied--nay, assured--that all members of the House would pause before challenging.

With this adjuration he resumes his place. You climb tremulously to your feet. The Speaker calls: “Mr. Wutherspoon.” And immediately most of the people in the Chamber rise, and hurry out, with looks of disgust and loathing. The bustle of their exit rather takes away from the effect of your carefully prepared opening sentences; and your biting gibe at the expense of the Minister seems in some mysterious way to have lost the greater part of its sting. Those to whom it is audible ejaculate a mirthless “Ha, ha,” to encourage a maiden speaker, and vanish in the wake of those members who have already left. You wonder to yourself, in dismay, whatever induced you to embark upon a Parliamentary career; and at the same moment, stumbling, quite by accident, upon some happy phrase, you are greeted, to your astonishment, with modified cheering. This is what you were waiting for. You feel that Parliament is not so insensible to your merits, as you had at first supposed. You seize the lapel of your coat with your left hand, and, throwing out your right in a generous half-circle, you venture boldly upon the great passage in your speech, beginning, “The witch-doctors of U-Ba-Be, a humble section of our fellow-subjects, organised, as who shall say they have no right to be organised, in a society, union or corporation, turn their eyes and lift up their voices to this House of Commons imploring....” Somehow, by the malignant intervention of unhappy chance, before you have said half a dozen words of this moving passage, a deathly silence has fallen upon the Chamber; all eyes are fixed upon you; you stumble and falter; and murmured conversation at once begins. Again you blunder on a telling phrase. Once more you find you are being listened to. This is a pity, because it betrays you into a touch of self-confidence. Immediately, all around you, faces, like flowers in the morning sun, expand into smiling bloom. But you are getting into your stride: you correct that mistake with a modest remark and a deprecating movement of the hand. Whereupon, you are cheered. You turn with graceful assurance towards the Chair. “Why, Mr. Speaker, the witch-doctors of U-Ba-Be,” you begin; and you find that the Speaker, who has a legion of duties beyond listening to the speeches, is in earnest conversation over the arm of the Chair with one of the Whips, or perhaps is writing, or--and this is so disconcerting as almost to petrify one with astonishment--he has vacated the Chair to the Deputy-Speaker, who wearing neither wig nor gown, is well-nigh invisible under the mighty canopy. In the dismay of this paralysing discovery, your legs endeavour to collapse under you. You nerve yourself for a prodigious effort, jettison the witch-doctors into space, and endeavour to sweep into the peroration, so carefully prepared on the subject of World Peace, adapted later to the Milk Bill, and now, with suitable alterations, doing service on behalf of the subject populations of the Empire. You get along very nicely for about two minutes; you feel that you are taking the House into your arms; you carefully avoid a second glance at the Chair, and look along the benches, warming to your work. Alas! at that moment somebody laughs. In all human probability his laughter had nothing to do with anything you said. In a feverish effort to recall your words, for purposes of correction, you lose the sequence of ideas, and the peroration follows the witch-doctors into the limbo of forgotten things. You lamely thank the House for its indulgence; and sit down covered with ignominy and shame.

Then, to your astonishment, other members turn round, and nod to you--nods of approval. Somebody says “Well done.” Somebody else leans forward, and pats you on the back. One of the leaders on the Front Bench actually turns round and looks at you. The Whip who arranged for your call offers words of congratulation.

You congratulate yourself--on having got it over.

FRONT BENCHES AND BACK BENCHES

The Front Bench, which faces the Treasury Box, and is located on the right of the Speaker’s Chair, is reserved for Ministers of the Crown. The Front Opposition Bench, which is on the left of the Speaker’s Chair and faces a similar box, is reserved for ex-Ministers and Privy Councillors in opposition. What secrets of State these massive brass-bound boxes contain, must be a source of anxious wonder to everyone who attends a Debate and looks down upon them from one of the Galleries. They look as though they are the very Holy of Holies of the Constitution, the arcana in which repose the mystic foundations of our greatness. You feel that, at least, they ought to contain Doomsday Book, the original manuscript of Magna Carta, and the Declaration of Rights. So massive and monumental is their appearance, so hallowed their associations, that you would not be surprised to discover that the special form of oath in the House of Commons was to swear “By the Treasury Box!” as kings of old did swear _par le splendeur Dex_.

Lovers of Stevenson will recall how, during his stay on the Island of Apemama, having been afflicted by influenza, and when all Western medicines had failed, he put himself in the hands of Tembinok’s Chief Magician, who, by invoking the deity Chench, effected a miraculous cure--so shaking the scepticism of Stevenson that he pursued investigations with the magician, which culminated in the discovery that Chench occupied a small wooden box in the Warlock’s house. Insatiable in his desire to extend his theological knowledge, he succeeded, after protracted bargaining, in acquiring the tenement of the god, bore it home in triumph, found himself, like one of his own characters in the story of the Bottle Imp, unable to resist the pangs of curiosity, and, with who can guess what delicious anticipations of the unknown, removed the lid--only to discover three cowrie shells and a little piece of matting. Such are the disappointments of the seeker after truth who should bring himself to open the Treasury boxes, for one is empty and the other contains a cheaply bound and quite unremarkable copy of the Bible and a couple of pieces of cardboard bearing a certain family resemblance to that part of the paraphernalia of the optician that he hangs on the wall to test your sight by--which are, in fact, copies in large letters of the oath, the Scotch oath and the Affirmation, required by law to be taken on signing the roll of Parliament, and embodied in this form for the convenience of the Clerk who administers them.

But this is a digression from the Front and Back Benches. The two members for the City of London, by some curious old survival, are entitled to sit on the Front Bench of their party; but in practice, since both Front Benches are notoriously insufficient to accommodate all claimants to seats, this traditional right of the City members is only exercised on the first day of a new Session, as who should put a barrier once a year across a private road, to prevent the right from lapsing. Nowadays with three large parties in the House, the third headed by two ex-Prime Ministers and a number of distinguished ex-Ministers and Privy Councillors, the front bench below the gangway, on the right of the Speaker’s Chair, has, by the Speaker’s ruling, become a Front Bench. Its opposite number on the left of the Chair has no special status. By virtue of their office, the Whips sit on the front benches of their respective parties. All the remainder of the House constitutes the back benches, with the exception of the Cross-benches--which, however, though actually within the Chamber, are, by a fiction, outside the House, being behind the Bar. It follows that a member may not address the House from the Cross-benches; but since, by way of compensation, the Members’ Galleries on either side of the House, though outside the Chamber, are, in fact, by a similar fiction, inside the House, a member may, and in Mr. Pemberton Billing’s time did, address the House from these lofty altitudes above it (if he is so fortunate as to catch the Speaker’s eye), giving himself, in the exercise of this privilege, the appearance of a contemplative passenger leaning over the side of a ship.

So much for the physical difference between the Front and Back Benches. What of the Front and Back Benchers? The Front Bencher is the finished product of the Parliamentary machine. He is, to the humble majority of his fellows, what the members of those august and mystic societies, like “Pop” at Eton, are reputed to be, to their less distinguished brethren. A Front Bencher is, by tradition of the House, entitled to catch the Speaker’s eye in preference to any Back Bencher. He need not attend prayers: indeed, if he values the privileges of his order, he will be careful never to attend prayers, but will saunter in to take his place whilst the Speaker’s Chaplain is bowing his way backwards down the floor of the House. He has the privilege of putting his feet on the Table, a practice which he not infrequently carries into his own home--to the mingled pride of his family and astonishment of his friends. But if the position has these privileges to give, it has also its responsibilities. Front Benchers must behave with decorum, and that is more than is expected of anyone else. They are the Sixth Form boys, and must set an example.

The successful Back Bencher should approach his work in the spirit of the Lower Third. Whilst he should not actually permit himself the relaxation of practical joking, and would perhaps be called to order if he shook a mouse out of his trouser leg, like “Pater” Winton in Kipling’s story, he has within reasonable limits of good humour, an ample licence to make sport. One well-known member of the House spends the greater part of his Parliamentary time twisting order papers into something between a spill and a spear, which he then ostentatiously throws upon the floor, as though he feared to encounter the temptation of continuing to hold them. Another is assiduous in the manufacture of paper darts, which as yet have never been thrown.

The experiences of other deliberative Assemblies have taught the House of Commons that Back Benchers are not to be trusted with inkwells. This is probably the reason why there is no provision for making notes, except upon one’s knee. But a lot of quiet fun can be had out of raising points of order that are not points of order, and by the judicious organisation of a hum of conversation to drown an opponent’s speech. Isolated interjections, if possible foreign to the subject of the Debate, and Supplementary Questions bearing no relation whatever to the original question, are also amongst the legitimate weapons of the Back Benchers. And finally, there is the great Parliamentary instrument, the use of which is almost entirely confined to Back Benchers, of moving the Adjournment of the House. Where some luckless Minister can be tripped up in answering a question, and it can be made to appear that the answer reveals a state of affairs definite, urgent and of public importance, the Speaker may be asked for leave to move the adjournment. If leave be granted, the motion is made, and, if supported by 40 members, is set down for discussion at 8.15 on the same evening, irrespective of what business has been allotted to that hour. This, in the hands of senior Back Benchers, can be turned to very effective account. Junior Back Benchers are well advised to master the use of the lesser Parliamentary weapons to begin with.

In all seriousness, there is a noticeable difference between Front and Back Benchers, noticeable whether you put Back Benchers on the front benches or Front Benchers on the back benches. Thus, in the last Parliament, Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Lloyd George, addressing the House from back bench corner seats, contrived to present the appearance of Gullivers amid Lilliputian surroundings--a phenomenon largely attributable to the Front Bench manner. Some members of the new Government (and one or two members of the last Government) who have not yet attained to Front Bench dimensions, present an equally astonishing contrast of the opposite kind. Their painfully unsuccessful efforts to command attention are a source of dismay to their friends and discomfort to their foes. The secret of successful Front Benchery is heavy thinking, and a heavier form of expression. His chief weapon is the polysyllable. A Back Bencher does best to study plain speech, the simpler the better. He may enliven his argument with jest and flippancy. He may controvert his opponent with a plain denial.

Woe to the leader who makes a joke. “Pas de plaisanteries, Madame,” observed a scandalised European monarch, to his jesting spouse: and that is a safe rule for Front Benchers in Debate. If a man is dull enough he can get almost anywhere, once he has reached the Front Bench; but ah, how difficult are the demands upon those behind him! The speeches which the House would fill to hear from the Front Bench, would, with equal certainty, denude it of all occupants, if delivered from behind. A Front Bench speech may run half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and even, in the case of the leaders, an hour. No Back Bencher should speak for more than twenty minutes, and fifteen is better. The Front Bench speech should be sonorous, well documented, weighty, responsible--in fact, a pronouncement. The Back Bench speech should be pithy, strictly to the point, not too serious, and, above all, modest--in the nature of a tentative expression of opinion.

Fortunately Front Benchers are not always dull--though they do their best. And Back Benchers as a rule are far from modest.

For a consequence the proceedings often provide such a feast of good fun, that successive Chancellors of the Exchequer have only narrowly resisted the imposition of an Entertainment Tax. This would be fair enough, if substantial compensation were payable for enduring the agonies of devastating boredom entailed by sitting through, for instance, some of the Scot----

Hush! There are too many Members of that virile race, for such remarks to be altogether wise.

“ORDER, ORDER”

In other lands they manage things differently. The President of the Lower House is enthroned on a majestic dais, at the head of a steep flight of steps; the Tribune, from which speeches are made, is beneath him; and he could, if he wished, bring the orator to reason, or, if need be, to the conclusion of his discourse, by a few steadying taps on the head with the ivory mallet which (auctioneer-wise) is his normal instrument for obtaining order. The mallet is reinforced by a large muffin bell, which, in times of distress, the President rings. And his final means of expressing disapproval is to put on his hat--a custom which perhaps furnishes us with the source of the jolly old folk tale, recorded in _Grimm_, of the King who used to suppress insurrections by pulling down his hat over his eyes, whereby cannons were fired off in all directions. This picturesque ceremonial, far more imposing than the procedure of the House of Commons, is also less effective for the maintenance of order. In the course of really closely reasoned arguments, in those less reticent assemblies, inkwells have been known to fly, the members have been kept from each other’s throats only by the intervention of the sabre-girt attendants, and the very citadel of the President himself has been beset; whereat, jangling his bell with one hand, and repulsing his assailants with a ruler in the other, he has resolutely maintained his hat upon his head, in testimony of the fact that, legally speaking and despite “the tumult and the shouting,” the _séance_ has long been at an end.

But in the House of Commons the powers of the Speaker are satisfactorily real; not only has he temporary jurisdiction over all persons within the precincts of the Palace, he has also unassailable power to deal with the members. He is himself both a member and something more than a member. He is chosen by the vote of the House; and, once approved by the King, is vested with supreme authority in the management of the Commons. Should a point of procedure arise, his decision is final. Should a question be put of which he disapproves he may disallow it. Should a member say that which, in the Speaker’s opinion, should not have been said, he may order the member to withdraw. Should his ruling be disobeyed he may send a member out of the Chamber. Should the defiance be persisted in, he may suspend the member from the service of the House, whereafter that member may not be admitted to the precincts, until, by resolution, the House itself has terminated his suspension. Yet the Speaker, omnipotent though he seems, is also the servant of the House. It was instructive not long ago to hear Speaker Whitley define his powers, in relation to the Crown, almost in the very words used by Speaker Lenthall, well-nigh three hundred years before: “For myself I think my reply must be that I have no tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me.”

It must not, however, be supposed that the Speaker exercises his functions of authority harshly. His principal weapon, in fact, is a kind of awful benignity. It is doubtful if there has ever been a Speaker of the House of Commons who maintained his position by severity; indeed, the House of Commons, which is far from being the unintelligent assembly one might suppose, if one judged by the Press, would never choose a person with whom there was the slightest risk of friction; for the House is very jealous of the rights of members. An indication of the kind of results that might be produced by an assumption of too pedagogic a heaviness, on the part of the Chair, was given in the Debate on the Army and Air Force Annual Bill in the last Parliament. In the early hours of the morning, after a trying all-night sitting, Sir Frederick Banbury, who was temporarily in the Chair, raised his voice a little beyond the pitch of good humour in calling to order Mr. Lansbury, who was addressing the House, whereat the latter bluffly retorted: “You must not shout at me. Order yourself.” Strictly speaking, Mr. Lansbury was out of order in making this retort. He should have deferred to the ruling of the temporary Chairman, and, if necessary, raised the matter with the Speaker after questions on the following day. But there has never been in modern times a member so jealous of the privileges of the House as Sir Frederick Banbury. He realised that tempers, his own perhaps included, had worn a little frayed during the sitting; and therefore, contenting himself by reminding the offender that he must not challenge the decisions of the Chair, he dexterously shepherded the discussion into safer channels.

Speaker Whitley keeps order by an unbroken suavity of manner, a great sense of fair play and a wise lenience towards faults committed in error, from which it will be seen that his hold upon the House is very largely due to the feelings of personal affection, in addition to natural respect and loyalty, with which he is regarded by all members, even the most junior. He is quite capable of administering a rebuke, but he prefers to conquer by gentleness: that is his peculiar quality. With Speaker Lowther it was a keen sense of humour and, if necessary, a blasting and ironic wit, that gave him his ascendancy. This is not to say that Speaker Whitley is always grave; far from it. His rulings are most often touched with humour. But it is a quiet, gentle humour, like the man himself--the humour of a serious man, not the _esprit_ of a wit. With Mr. Speaker Peel the governing factor was a tremendous, awe-inspiring dignity--something of the same kind as that traditionally ascribed to Dr. Arnold of Rugby School.

It must not, indeed, be imagined that the House of Commons never gets out of hand: nor must it be imagined that the House of Commons has only got out of hand since the Labour Party grew large. The House of Commons must always have been a troublesome body. “Scenes” in the House have taken place right back to the days of Oliver Cromwell; indeed, Mr. Drinkwater in his play gave a vivid representation of a scene in the House in those days. The very carpets on the floor are eloquent of what took place in former times; for the red line, down the outer edge of the strip that borders the front benches, is no less than a warning to members that, in speaking, they must not put their feet beyond it, on pain of being “out of order”: and the purpose of this rule is to keep them from engaging each other with their swords instead of their tongues in the heat of Debate! There were scenes in the House, constant scenes, in the old Reform Bill days and in the old Irish days. Mr. T. P. O’Connor still tells the dramatic story of the expulsion of Bradlaugh, and equally dramatic stories of the bodily removal of Irish members. Mr. Lloyd George himself has stories of suspension to tell. There were scenes in Parliament just before the war--when, for instance, Mr. McNeill threw a book at Mr. Churchill. There were scenes in the last Parliament, as when the four Labour members were suspended, and on other occasions. There will inevitably be scenes in the present Parliament; and it is safe to say that scenes will take place so long as the Commons shall survive.

But whereas in other countries, despite the muffin bell and the top hat, the President cannot avoid being drawn in, in the Mother of Parliaments the Speaker is something more than a restraining influence, he is the embodiment of law and order. He has behind him for the suppression of disorder the whole power of the State. He could fill the House of Commons with police, and suppress disorder of any magnitude; and if such an occasion arose, and threatened, as it would, our whole Parliamentary institution, the Speaker for the time being would unhesitatingly do so. But that situation will hardly arise. We do most things in this country in the spirit in which we play our games. Members know that, if they transgress the rules beyond a certain point, they will be suspended. They know that when suspended the Speaker will sign to the Sergeant-at-Arms and the Sergeant-at-Arms, advancing up the floor of the House, will require them to leave the Chamber. And because it is part of the rules of the game that they must do so, they will do so, in the same spirit as they would accept the decision of the umpire in a cricket match. So much for individuals. And if a party--which happened once in the last Parliament--as an organised whole, were to make business impossible by concerted noise, the Speaker has yet another weapon in his armoury. Under Standing Order he may, “in view of grave disorder,” adjourn the House “without question put,” and give the forces of reason time to reassert themselves.

How undramatic! Yes. But the whole point about the Speaker is that he is not a Loud-Speaker.

LORDS AND COMMONS

Though housed in the same building, though separated by a mere matter of yards of stone-flagged corridor and lobby, no two assemblies more essentially different in character, than the House of Commons and the House of Peers, could easily be imagined. They exist, it is true, for legislative purposes, the one being complementary to the other; but when that has been said not many points of similarity remain. The Speaker of the Commons is enthroned in a majestic canopied chair, dominating the Assembly over which he rules; the Lord Chancellor, who presides over the proceedings of the House of Lords, squats on a monstrous crimson cushion, like a feather-bed gone mad, facing a yet more monstrous crimson cushion upon which, on occasions of State, His Majesty’s Judges sit back to back, reproducing that obsolete formation, the hollow square, with which we won the battle of Waterloo. The Speaker of the Commons is so called because he so seldom speaks--because, indeed, he is the only member of the House who may not speak, except as the House directs him. The Lord Chancellor, on the other hand, may, and habitually does, indulge in any flights of dithyrambic eloquence that happen to surge out of his teeming brain; and, though, unlike the Speaker, it does not lie with him to determine the order in which Noble Lords shall address the House, he might, if he chose, monopolise the whole time with his own speeches. Indeed, when Lord Birkenhead was Chancellor such a happening was not regarded as....

Fortunately, no such proceeding is possible in the House of Commons, or, with a series of stunning reports, Mr. Pringle, Commander Kenworthy and Mr. David Kirkwood would explode from suppressed mortification; and there are others whose peace of mind would be seriously impaired. But in the House of Lords they are only too anxious to avoid speaking; indeed, the difficulty usually seems to be, to overcome the natural reluctance of Noble Lords to allow their voices to be heard, in that rarefied atmosphere, before they have reached the years of threescore and ten, laid down by the Psalmist as the normal span of mankind.

In such circumstances of difference what wonder that each House regards the other as a sort of _lusus naturæ_, a freak, a giant pumpkin? This sense of strangeness finds the extreme of its expression, in the House of Commons, in such outbursts as Mr. Jack Jones’s bitter expostulation against “those marionettes,” on the occasion when the Commons were sent for by the Lords to hear a Commission read, and found in the Gilded Chamber five Lords Commissioners resplendent in robes, seated in line; a solitary Back Bench Bishop, and one very junior Peer, probably a mere Baron, who, having wandered in by mistake, sought to efface himself under the lee of Black Rod’s box. “That,” said Mr. Jack Jones bitterly, “is what they think of _Us_.” Indeed, a chilling disdain is the chief characteristic of the public attitude of the Upper towards the Lower House--as for instance when the latter, in a new Parliament, are haughtily bidden to “repair to the place where you are to sit,” as though they were fowls, “and proceed to the choice of some proper person to be your Speaker,” as though, without that admonition, they would choose somebody from the neighbourhood of Leicester Square. This well-bred contempt is repaid, in the Commons, by veiled references to “another place.” On this exchange of courtesies, the Peers seem to come off best; though, when it comes to practicalities, the positions are reversed, as any student of the Parliament Act knows only too well--little now remaining to the Peers of their former legislative glory.

They get it back upon the faithful Commons, in virtue of their position in the Constitution as the Supreme Judicial Tribunal of the kingdom, whereby it follows that, if, under the Parliament Act, they cannot oppose indefinitely the legislative will of the Commons, they can to some small extent indemnify themselves, in their capacity of final interpretative authority, after the legislation has been passed. In practice they delegate this function to the Law Lords, five of whom, seated on the red benches with rickety desks in front of them, spend interminable mornings appraising subtle and circumlocutory arguments addressed to them from the Bar of the House by learned Counsel, standing at a kind of lectern, and surrounded by their fellows eager to propound distinctions. There is, however, nothing to prevent any Noble Lord so minded from partaking in this intellectual feast. Indeed, a legend obtains of a sturdy independent Peer, jealous of what would be called in the House of Commons “private members’ rights,” who, for years, insisted on attending, on these occasions, and delivering himself of ponderous allocutions of which no one present, himself least of all, understood one word of the meaning. It says much for the self-restraint of our Hereditary Nobles that his example has not been followed in modern times--though with Sir Frederick Banbury elevated to the Peerage one can never be quite sure.

The House of Lords, in short, is a living example of the utility of the unworkable, the practicality of the impracticable, and the incredible sanity of the British Constitution. By all the rules of the game, in a Chamber composed of more than 600 people, fully half of whom have no serious political interests, governed apparently by no rules of procedure, and held in check, in fact, by nothing except tradition, the proceedings might be expected to be those of a disorderly rabble. In fact, 80 members is a good attendance, and 50 is nearer the average. The speeches are as a rule so closely reasoned, so admirably informed and of such excellence of style, as to be a source of never-ending envy to members of the Commons. Such a thing as a “constituency” speech is, of course, unknown. There are no “dockyard” members. Nothing need be said with a view to a general election. Nor can a member of the Upper Chamber be imagined making a speech, for the sake of speaking. It is not exactly an inviting atmosphere for such an undertaking. Imagine yourself standing up to address a huge and almost empty chamber, furnished with crimson benches, and tenanted by a smattering of elderly gentlemen all staring with polite fixity at their boots. It really looks as though this undemocratic and almost atavistic body, despite all its anomalies, was in practice something of an example to its elective fellow-House, both in the expeditious transaction of business and in the orderliness of its proceedings. Their very method of voting is indicative of their critical keenness, their impatience with the institutions of this world, their determination to be satisfied with nothing less than perfection. The form of the vote is not, as in the Commons, “Aye” and “No,” but “Content” and “Not Content.”

Usually they are not content.

IRREVERENT INTERVIEWS AND OTHER IRRELEVANCES

WITH LORD BALFOUR AT THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

He received me with exquisite courtesy, waved me into a chair, sank into another himself, and sat, with folded hands and an expression compounded of saintly refinement and dignified composure, regarding me gravely through limpid, untroubled eyes, protected from the tarnishing realities of the world by horn-rimmed spectacles. His silky, white hair gleamed softly in the half-light. His moustache reposed over a mouth touched with wistful sadness, but serene and courageous. Rarely have I seen anything more placid and self-possessed. But he had his small irritations. I was one of them.

“Yes,” he began, with the faintest air of hesitation, “yes. It’s good of you to have come--er. Er--most obliging, I’m sure. It’s a pity they didn’t tell me about it. You see, I’d already arranged.... Yes--(_really troubled_)--most unfortunate! (_Brightening._) We might walk a little way together. (_Troubled again._) But perhaps that wouldn’t suit you--no. It would? That’s very lucky. Shall we go now?... They’ll give me a hat, I suppose?...”

We found ourselves walking down a prodigious staircase, and I heard him say, “Extraordinary buildings these American hotels! I always wonder on what principle they’re constructed. The groining of the roof, for instance....” Well, to be truthful, I’m not really sure that he said “groining,” for my mind (I confess it with shame) was wandering speculatively among the mysterious “them” by whom all great men are surrounded. “They” are always lurking in the background. “They” do all the interesting things; but when some really unpleasant job comes along “they” always work it off on “him.” You can picture “them” planning out the day. “Now,” they say, “there’s your speech on the Irish question, your report for the League of Nations, the article you promised to write for the _Hibbert Journal_, new socks and ties, another hat, and that awful check waistcoat you bought to be exchanged for something quieter. We’ll do all that. Then there’s the christening of the Infant Princess Vodkha, and General Thing’s funeral. You’d better take those. They’re very important. Oh, and there’s the Pilgrims’ dinner in the evening. You can go to that, too. Mind you say nothing in your speech that we shall be sorry for afterwards.” I should like to be one of “them,” and feel that I was really pulling my weight in the country.

That, roughly, was the train of my thoughts, when I remembered that an interviewer’s business is to interview and not to acquiesce in excursions into the by-paths of architecture. “They” would never allow that.

“--and I’ve wondered sometimes,” he was saying, “whether the cantilever had anything to do with it. But--but, no doubt, you can tell me that.”

“I can,” I said, “but it would take too long to explain. Besides, the public expects me to put my few moments with you to a better purpose than discussing mechanics. The world is expecting a new era to date from the Washington Conference; and, as the chief British delegate----”

“The trouble with the world,” he replied, “is that it is perpetually expecting the millennium. They expected it after the Congress of Berlin. They expected it to emerge from the Hague Peace Conference, and they got the Great War! They expected a new Heaven and a new Earth out of the Peace Treaty; they got the League of Nations, which was an enormous step forward. And because the League hasn’t revolutionised humanity, because in the space of two years it hasn’t yet effectively counter-checked all the instincts and passions which man has inherited from the anthropoid ape, they brand it as a failure--or, at best, a half success--and turn their eyes to Washington; and if we should not be able (and who can predict that we shall be able?) to realise all the passionate hopes and aspirations in their hearts, they’ll turn away from our work in despair (however useful and practical it may be), and they’ll go on staring into the future, straining their sight in search of changes, that, by their very nature, are not to be perceived; and, because they cannot watch a kind of sensational picture-drama of evolution unfolding before their eyes, they will condemn each progressive step as a futility.”

“Now, in this particular case,” I began, for he had paused dreamily.

“I have always had warm feelings for America,” he continued, inconsequently as it seemed; “indeed, some of my earliest public speeches were devoted--Yes? Were you about to say anything?--were devoted to pleading for what one might call a Pax Anglo-Americana, as something wider than the Pax Britannica, and as a step towards--a step towards some better understanding between the various states of the world.”

I sought to pin him down. “And is that your expectation of the outcome of this Conference?”

“I see no reason why one should not hope, and ... and, indeed, there seems to me every reason for believing, that our ... our discussions and conversations will reveal sufficient of our respective points of view to serve as a basis for future negotiations, and possibly to give a broad indication of the lines upon which a general agreement might ultimately be reached.”

I changed front swiftly. “You were in the United States in 1917?”

“In 1917, yes.”

“Do you notice many changes?”

“I can’t help feeling that there is a certain popular aridity which, I should have said, was conspicuously absent on the occasion of my last visit. Naturally, during a war, public opinion tends to be exuberant and ... and, indeed, at times fluid----”

“Then you think the political atmosphere of America has become noticeably drier?”

“I think you must not ask me to discuss the politics of a friendly Power within ... within the confines of that Power. Or, indeed, you may ask, of course, but I feel it would be improper to answer.”

I flung myself upon him from another angle.

“People in England cannot help wondering what effect Mr. Hara’s assassination will have on the Conference.”

“I have always thought,” he replied, after a pause, “that in a society so constituted as ours, it is impossible that such an incident--or, or, indeed, any incident--should be devoid of effect and significance.”

“It might prejudice the issue?”

“Conceivably. Or, on the other hand, in certain circumstances, by drawing attention to what is called the War Party in Japan--if such a party exists, as to which I say nothing--it might, in the long run, exercise quite the opposite influence.”

I tried a more direct approach. “Might I ask what will be the policy of the British Delegation?”

“Certainly. The policy of the British Delegation, subject to the approval of His Majesty’s Government, will be that decided upon, after due deliberation, by the Chief Delegate in consultation with his colleagues.”

We walked on a few yards in silence--I struggling to frame a question that he could not evade, he with his eyes on the horizon and his thoughts (I imagine) in another planet. To relieve my evident distress, he said at last, “Would you like me to say anything further?”

I threw diplomacy to the winds and faced him with savage determination. I said to myself that I would not be trifled with.

“Sir,” I cried, “we have talked for half an hour. I think I know less of your thoughts on this subject now than before we began. In the name of the publicity for which I have heard you appeal in the League of Nations, say something specific of your hopes and fears, something to which posterity may point a finger, saying, ‘Here was a statesman with vision. He _knew_.’”

“That,” he replied with gentle gravity, “is a little difficult. Er--as ... as you know, I am always unwilling to assume the _rôle_ of prophet. Indeed, I am not prepared to say that in the scheme of things as I understand it--and using ... using the word in the sense that is customary to me--that such a thing as a prophecy has any existence at all. But I feel--yes, I feel the necessity which you have urged upon me with--er--with--er ... so eloquently; and I am above all things--and at all times--desirous of affording such proper information as the public ought to receive, upon such a topic as our present Conference, to those whose ... whose work it is to--to disseminate--er--such information. I see no harm, therefore, in acceding to your request, at the same time making it clear that, since these issues are momentous and easily imperilled, you must observe the ... the greatest discretion in any use--er--in any use to which you may put my words.”

Overpowered at the apparent success of my appeal to his better feelings, I could only bow my thanks. The veteran statesman veiled his eyes with their tired lids and seemed to ponder.

“Well,” he said at last, “subject to what I have already stated, I see no reason why I should not say that the Outlook is not ... is not as bad as it might be. And now--yes, this is where I must leave you. It has been a great pleasure to speak so frankly; and I know you will be discreet. Good-bye.”

And then he left me and strolled on his way with serene detachment. But whether the “Outlook” to which he referred was the paper of that name, or the prospect before the Washington Conference, those who have read so far are as well able to judge as I.

WITH MONSIEUR BRIAND AFTER THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

The great liner warped into the quay. Hushed expectation poised itself over the multitude. A dumpy figure, almost incredibly small against the vastness of the ship, appeared at the head of the accommodation ladder, and waddled slowly down the side, followed, at a respectful distance, by obsequious midgets. It approached nearer, resolving itself into a small round-shouldered man with a heavy, pale face, distinguished eyebrows and prodigious moustaches. His eyes were grey and meditative; his hair a shaggy, black mane, bursting irrepressibly from under his hat. He strode ashore, and prostrated himself on the soil of his beloved country.

“_Ah, la patrie_,” he cried in his thrilling, resonant voice, rising from his knees as he spoke, and lifting his right hand in solemn invocation. “Ah, my country, thy faithful Aristide, thy humble servitor salutes thee. He returns, inflated with no Imperialism, but none the less from the depths of his heart proud to have upheld, in thy name, before all the assembled conscience of mankind, those principles of liberty, those imperishable ideals of justice, of international comity and brotherhood, that fine spirit of self-abnegation in which it has ever been the boast of France to lead the world. Oh, liberty, what sacrifice would we not willingly offer in thy behalf? Oh, freedom, where is thy source if not in France? Oh, humanity----”

I tapped him on the shoulder.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I said.

“_Vous dites, M’sieur?_” he asked indignantly.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I repeated sternly. “What do I hear that you’ve been saying in Washington about British warships and sardine-hunting, French submarines and botanical expeditions, and the unknown X?”

He showed his teeth in a grim smile.

“The unknown X? _Qu’est-ce que c’est ça? M’sieur veut dire peut-être ‘La femme X’?_”

“No evasions,” I warned him. “I am here in the interests of the British public. They are pained, Monsieur, pained! They know nothing of international politics, and very little about politicians--even their own. But they know that, in their quiet way, they’ve grown to be fond of your people. They see that you misunderstand them. And it hurts them to think that the Entente Cordiale----”

He flicked his fingers impatiently.

“_L’entente cordiale! Ah, M’sieu, l’entente cordiale!_ ... Are you understanding French?”

“Not noticeably,” I confessed.

“_Alors!_ Well, I shall tell you in English.... What is it, this Entente Cordiale? _Hein?_ An understanding of friends, _n’est ce pas_? What the Americans call a ‘gentleman’s agreement.’ You make it because you trust so much, that you will not care to have a Treaty. Well, then, but you must trust your _vis-à-vis_. You must not put all the bad construction on his doing. Not even a Treaty will stand that. You cannot have Entente, and then go on nag, nag, nag, like an old peasant woman with the toothache. Oh, it is impossible, _M’sieu_, impossible!”

“Angora?” I hinted.

“Angora....” He shrugged bluffly. “Well, yes, Angora. That is, perhaps, a pity. We are--we are in the soup with Angora.” He passed it off with a disarming grin. “But, _après tout_, what can you expect of Bouillon? We shall settle all that.... And it is not Angora that threaten our Entente, M’sieu. Ah, no! That is a small thing. A few Kemalist do not imperil Anglo-French relations. Pouf!...”

His face grew troubled and sad.

“M’sieu, you know perfectly. It is Germany. Yes. You talk a lot of the separate peace with Turkey. In the letter that is so; but in the spirit you make a separate peace with Germany. Oh, yes. This is not epigram--it is truth. Germany, she does not intend to pay. Perhaps she cannot pay. I do not know. It is possible she cannot; but you in England pretend to her that she _cannot_ pay and to us that she _will_ pay. _Ménager la chèvre et le chou!_ Is that entente cordiale?...”

“You see,” I endeavoured to explain, “this is a subject on which there are two views in England. One side holds that Germany can pay something--the precise sum varies according to the knowledge and dispassion of the thinker. The other party contends that she can pay nothing at all--that it would be wiser in the general interest of Europe to cancel the whole debt; and that view, not widely held, is gaining ground----”

“At the expense of France,” he interjected sharply. “Yes. Not at your expense, my generous friend, but at the expense of France.”

“That,” I answered, “is partly true; but not entirely true. Viewed in its immediate context, it may be so; but taken in perspective, the trade revival in Germany----”

“Ah,” he cried, “_Ah, ça, M’sieu!_ The trade revival in Germany. And then, _M’sieu_, and then? The political revival of Germany. The military revival of Germany. The German hegemony. Mittel Europa. _Merci, M’sieu!_ And France, what of France?”

“France,” I began, “is a member of the League of Nations.”

“And Germany,” he replied, “is not. And America is not. And Russia, with her army of two millions, is not. Thank you for your League of Nations, _M’sieu_. What will it be in ten years? Perhaps the great co-ordinating harmoniser of the whole world. Perhaps not. What is America wishing since I leave Washington. They will have a new League, with no Covenant. _C’est à dire_ nothing that binds--nothing that give security to such as France. Just a lot of amiable pleasantry, that you interpret as you please. Much of your Press are support them. Do that give confidence to France?... First we are to have the Tripartite Treaty--England, America, France. Then that is not ratify. And our English friends say, ‘Never mind. You have it all in Article 10. The League of Nations will protect you.’ Now, perhaps, the League will follow the Tripartite Treaty. Oh, yes, I know they say the Association will be side by side with the League. But how can you have that? It is a rival system. They say it will be found upon The Hague Tribunal. Then what comes to the International Court? It is to make of international politics a kind of _bouillabaisse_.... _Non, M’sieu!_ I am head of a Government. I am responsible to a nation. Do you seriously advise me to trust in the League of Nations?”

“I advise you,” I answered, “to trust more in ideas, and less in things. Ideas let loose in the world cannot be destroyed. The League of Nations is an idea--not an office at Geneva. Civilisation is an idea; religion is an idea. What banded the nations together for the Great War? The strength of an idea.”

“Self-preservation,” he muttered, cynically.

“_Monsieur le Président_, that is unworthy.” (He bowed ironically at the rebuke.) “It is the contemptible argument of the materialist. What drew our young men to fight in 1914? Self-preservation. Never! I doubt if half of them knew the meaning of it. It was the conviction that an evil thing was being done, and the belief that it was their duty to prevent it.”

“Some of your Statesmen,” he continued, as if my remark had not been made, “are so kind as to teach my Government his business. They stand up in public and lecture us, warn us. Italy go wild with rage, because some lying journalist attribute to me what I have not said. England and America link arms and get drunk on formulas of disarmament, that perhaps mean nothing in the light of science to-day. Japan disguise herself as a mandarin and go behind the scenes in China ... and Germany and Russia look on with sardonic satisfaction to see the isolation of France, and prepare for the next ‘Day’! That give one great encouragement to disarm. And all the time to be uncertain--uncertain of one’s friends.... You say your people, they have love for France. _Ma foi_, they take a strange method to show it!... I do not understand. No, I do not understand.”

“Must one,” I asked him, “must one always understand? Cannot one have faith in a friendship, tried and proved?”

“You say to have faith,” he mused. “Yes, but that is not so easy. For every belief there must be a foundation--the rock on which the Church is build. Where is my rock?”

“The English dead,” I murmured.

His voice suddenly softened.

“_Ah, M’sieu_, those dead. I was forgetting.... We have all lived at so much pressure since the Peace, that we forget too often the fundamentals. We live for so many such strenuous years steeped in sentiment, that now we have a reaction.... Those dead in their quiet graves in the North of France--sleeping there till the end of time.

“Yes. We have been too impatient, and we say things that we do not mean. It is not only here in France; your Ministers, too, have been at fault. But, _au fond_, it means nothing.

“Listen. I shall tell you. Let us speak no more of _L’Entente Cordiale_. It is a phrase of politicians and tradesmen. We shall say in future _La Grande Amitié_. It shall be--it is--a great love between two peoples, sanctified in a bitter struggle for a common aim.... I am glad to have talked with you, _M’sieu_. Perhaps our conversation can be having good results.

“Do not be too hasty with us. Remember, France have much to fear on the Continent. If we do what seem to you wrong, then be patient. It is not perversity, always.”

He clambered into the car that waited, and drove away through the cheering ranks of his fellow-countrymen....

And I wondered.

WITH MR. LLOYD GEORGE DURING HIS PREMIERSHIP

“... And which of us,” he said, smiling at me over the breakfast table, “which of us do you wish to see?”

I murmured that I did not understand--er....