English Political Notes.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 94, 22 April 1893, Page 12

English Political Notes.

(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

London, March 3.

Thanks to the energy of Mr Asquith and the subdued character of the Opposition in the absence of Mr Balfour, an immense amount of good work was. gob through in the House of Commons last week. Nob that much seemed to be going on. As « Tay Pay 'in his always readable review remarks :—' There was a calm, bhe deadlines* of which it is impossible to exaggerateBut periods of calm are much more interesting to Governments than to the public. When there is the noise and tumult of battle ; when the galleries are crowded— when peers jostle each other in the race for seats—when the Prince of Wales comes down to his place ovor the clock, then you may take it for granted that the business of the country is at a standstill; and that just ao much of the public time is being vvasted in mere emptiness and talk. But when the House is half empty—when the galleries are no longer full—when debates are brief and passionless, then you can reasonably conclude that things are going well with the Government; that useful business is in progress; and that something is being really added to the happiness of the nation.

So ib has been during this week. No greab diplomats have claimed fcheir seats; the outer lobby is no longer besieged; there is no longer any ferocity of competition for seats ; and the attendance at prayers has visibly relaxed ; but all the time more useful legislation has been going forward in the course of this week than in any week for upwards of six or seven years of Parliamentary time.

On Monday afternoon the Governments Registration Bill passed in a few hours, the debate being illumined by an excellent maiden speech from John Burns. Even a few briefer moments sufficed for the Scotch Registration Bill, and by ten o'clock the astonished House found itself listening to the Home Secretary introducing the third great measure of the Government in the same evening. On Thursday, after a weary interval of private members' bills, Mr Asquith was ajraiu to the fore introducing the 'Suspensory Bill for the Established Church in Wales.1 Mr Gladstone had opposed this measure years ago, and Lord Randolph was soon on his feet and in excellent fighting trim, quoting what h3 considered crushing passages from Mr Gladstone's old speeches against tsho bill. Jf he hoped to confuse the Parliamentary hand by this policy, he must have been disappointed. TbeG.O.M. punctuated the quotations with bland " Hear, hears," and seemed in no wiso ashamed of the opinions of other days. Ho explained presently that his personal views had nob materially changed, and that the Government were simply giving way to constitutional pressure. When he had opposed the bill years ago hardly a single Welsh member favoured the movement, now they were almost unanimous in demanding it* Ultimately Lord Randolph did effectually rouse the old war horse. Whab the exact expression was which wenb home no one knows, bub the Premier's oyea blazed, and at eleven fifteen he pointed imperatively, almost menacingly, a lean finger at the clock indicating that he must reply and the House had bub little time before it.

* Tay Pay' says that though on Thursday Lord Randolph had nob recovered his old mastery of himself or tho House, his appearance was very different from what ih was a few nights ago. There was no longer that constant trembling of the handa which made it almost painful to look at him ; the voice no longer shook painfully ; and there was a certain recurrence of that old selfconfidence. But still he is far from what he used to be. The once resonant voice is somewhat muffled and hoarse, and there waa a certain tendency to feverish exaggeration of language and of voice—in fact, the old Fourth Party methods of almost conscious playing to the gallery. However, it waa a good fighting speechand the Tories had been bo depressed by the bad speaking on their own aide, and by the solid bench opposite of cheering, snorting, defiant but distinctly practical Welshmen, that they were delighted and cheered admiringly. The intimates of Mr Gladstone declare that composure is perhaps the most remarkable of his many qualities. In the midst of a Cabinet crisi3 he would hand you a postage-stamp as though it were the sole matter that concerned him. But it is also said by his intimates that he has possibilities ot Olympian wrath which almost frighten people. He was certainly roueed to a passion by Lord Randolph—very much to the advantage and delight of the House of Commons ; for during the earlier portion of the evening and especially while the speech of Mr Asquith was being delivered, there was an impression that he did not look very happy. It is known that he is still fondly devoted to the Church, and it was suspoctod that though hia convictions were settled on the necessity of doing away with the establishment in Wales, it was nob the kind of work to which he went with any zeab. But Lord Randolph roused the Old Lion within him, and with flashing eye, with a voice the resonance of which echoed through the House as though he were twenty years younger— with abundance of gesticulation, and sometimes with swinging blows that were almost crue l_he alew the young intruder, and wound up the debate on the Church in a frenzy of excitemeub and delight among his followers.

MR KENYON.

There came, then, a series of incidents which threw the House into convulsions of

rancorous acorn and farcical laughter. Earlier in the evening there had been a speech by Mr Kenyon. Words fail to describe the kind of speech Mr Kenyon delivers. Sometimes one is doubtful as to the sex of the speaker, for he moans oub his lamentations over ' the dear old Church of England' exactly as one would imagine a sweet old lady with a gingham' umbrella and a widow's cap to intone it. Meantime, the rest of the House is convulsed with laughter, so that there is the curious contrast of one man — Punch - like in complexion and face—reciting a dirge while the rest of the House are holding their universal sides with laughter. The anger came when Sir Henry James and Mr T. W. Russell were seen to bo fluctuating between the Liberal and the Tory lobby. Joe wisely found a convenient engagement at Birmingham. I At last Toryism prevailed, and amid a tempest, of ironical cheers, the Liberal renegades went into the Tory lobby. Then the Tories were beaten by a majority of 56, after which they tried a little obstruction. But it was promptly sat upon ; the closure was moved; only the solitary and plaintive voice of Mr Kenyon rose in protest against it, and so amid shouta of laughter and triumph the doom of the Welsh Establishment was pronounced. Who John Clake Was. 1 Tay Pay's' Parliamentary summary is never more thoroughly entertaining than when he drops into reminiscence, and recalls for our benefit some of those great scenes of 'storm and stress' in which Parnell and Biggar, then commencing their abhorred obstruction policy, played a prominent part. He revives this week the strange : story of tho grievances of John Clare, a name which constant iteration once rendered 'familiar to our ears as household words.' Neverthelass, not one man in a hundred ever knew who this constantly-cropping-up Clare was, or what were his grievances. On Friday nightsin Parliament, as Mr O'Connor explains, supply is always taken, or, in other words, the Government want money. But before a penny of money can be obtained, there is the right to raise grievance. It is not always easy to find some grievance. Especially was it difficult to poor Biggar and Parnell, when the rest of the House was determined to leave them entirely to their own resources. And, then, though they had plenty of ability in their way, neither the one nor the other had great fertility of mind or speech, and were not able to speak on any subject with copious eloquence as other members of their party afterwards bad to learn to do.

In these circumstances, there appeared on the horizon a figure thab ought not to be allowed to die from history—a figure grotesque, pathetic—ono of the sheer and curious accidents of history cast to the top of a stormy wave without any real relevancy or connection with the passion on which it was thus tossed. Some 14 or 15 years ago I saw (I think it was either in Parliamentstreet or the Strand) a respectably-dressed man with a large placard on boards on his chest and back. We all know what the ordinary sandwich-man is like. In the melodramas of my youth the lasb stnge of poverty and degradation to which the honest victim of superhuman villainy was condemned was to the position of a sandwich man, and the sandwich-man certainly generally looks one of the worst and most pitiful victims of outcast fortune. -

But this particular sandwich-man was evidently of an entirely different type. He was, as I hare said, wall dressed, and his expression was the very opposite of the pitiful and appealing mournfulness which ordinarily diftinguishes the race. He had a large array of white shirt front and a shaven upper lip—long, strong, and resolute—and lie had a black frock-coat and the stubby beard of a dissenting deacon —a beard like that of Mr Stoach, M.P., in Mr Jones's play of 'The Bauble Shop.' Further, he was thick-set, stout and walked and looked the truly sturdy Briton who knows the full extent of his rights; is determined to have them —it needs be against the world in arms. Of shamefacedness, of fear of ridicule, of any sentiment bub thab of stern self-confidence, sturdy self-assertion there was no trace whatever in the face or demeanour. I remember being; struck with all this, for of all the tests, I should say, to a man's command of countenance nothing could bo so severe of that of standing in a crowded thoroughfare with every gaper gathered in crowds around one. This was John Clare.

It was on the kerbstone and in this sandwich-man that Mr Paruell and Mr Biggar found their deadliest material in obstructing the Tory Government of the period. I forget precisely at this moment what it was that poor John Clare claimed. He was one of the unhappy class of patentees and inventors who claim—rightly or wrongly—the original idea of some great invention by which the histories of nations are changed, and other men are supposed to get to the wealth ot millionaires." If I remember rightly, the particular invention of John Clare was as to the armour with which the ironclad is protected, and has been evolved out of the old wooden walls of England. Time, after time, session after session, year after year, the grievance of John Clare stood on the noticepaper on a Friday night; in the name of either Mr Parnell or Mr Biggar. Of course, there was always the stereotyped official answer—true or false, I know not— that Mr John Clare's claims had not the smallesb foundation in fact. Bub no answer—soft or stern—turned away the wrath with which Mr Parnell would rend the Government which refused him redress; and I remember well the admiration, mixed with amusement, with which I saw Mr Paruell one night go through the highcomedy of intense interest and almost speechles indignation over the wrongs of this unhappy gentleman.

But another election brought many colleagues fco Mr Parnell's side, and the Land League in Ireland and Coercion gave plenty of topics to the then brilliant and youthful band by which Mr Parnell was surrounded. Mr Biggar—who was intensely staunch both in his hatreds and in his friendships, refused to abandon John Clare for a Session or two. But poor John Clare had served his purpose, and soon disappeared into space* Bub his name deserves to be recorded in every Irish history that pretenda to be complete.