ON GUARD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 19 June 1941, Page 8

ON GUARD

| PARLIAMENTARY DEFENDERS WESTMINSTER AT WAR Big Ben chimes, strikes seven o'clock. Again, morning over Britain, and all's well. The chimes roll over London, booming across the muddy river. Ships industriously pattern the sunlit water. The Thames barges, like the Thames lighters, never sleep. Flying the White Ensign, patrol launches, wartime auxiliaries of the Royal Navy, prowl into nooks and crannies on His Majesty's important business of guarding wealth floating on the river. Over the spanning bridges where red omnibuses conglomerate, multi - coloured traffic In camp-beds, members of Parliament, sleeping in khaki, grey army blankets pulled around their shoulders, stir as others shake them into wakefulAlong deserted corridors, through innumerable dark rooms, the clang of rifle butts rings sharply; feet tramp a tattoo as still others come off duty—-the strangest duty ever Parliamentarians discharged in the service of the Mother of Parliaments, writes Tahu Hole from London to the Melbourne “Herald” before the debating chamber was wrecked by bombs. A waiter greets a peer, both in common battledress. During the night they have been comrades-in-arms, sharing guard. An engineer, a rifle slung over his shoulder, joins them. “Well, that’s another night without a Jeny!” The middle-aged peer—his son was killed at Dunkirk—flicks his lighter, cups his hands as the waiter puts his cigarette to the flame. The three move towards the Guardroom. With other tired unshaven men they begin to change from khaki to civilian dress, preparing for a day's ordinary work. They have finished their turn of guard for three nights. THEIR TASK A strange tableaux, true; but where else better than in the precincts of the House of Commons should something reflecting so uncommonly the flexibility of Democracy be staged? Except to emphasise them and to deepen their significance, war has made no difference to the traditional functions of the British Parliament. That solid arena of the inevitable class and social conflict has surrendered none of its rights or privileges. To the habits of its members and its staff it has made a great many changes. The activities of both, in some respects, have been increased. Joining | forces with journalists, waiters, clerks, | messengers, engineers, librarians, in fact with representatives of almost all j the medley of professions and Hades j composing the everyday life of Parlia- I ment, about 70 members of the House j of Commons, and 10 of the House of , Lorde. belong to a unit of the nation’s Home Guard. Their task is to defend ' the Palace of. Westminster. To try to cross Palace Yard after | dusk, when they take over from the police, is to invite a challenge from one of the. patrolling in full battledress. on guard at a parapet, or, rare spectacle, to watch them parading before their Commander. Brigadier-Gene-ral Sir Ernest Makins, M.P. “As tough a bunch of soldiers as would please any group of Diggers,” Mr Ben Smith, M.P., put it to me, never eager to conceal his pride that, although his English parents brought him

away when he was three, he was born I ;.i Western Australia. AMONG TIIE GUARD ! At the sight of grey-haired Lord j March wood, leader of the House of 1 Lords’ section, throwing a hand gro- : nade at imaginary German invaders: of jthat veteran of former Middle East I campaigns. Colonel IT. A. Pollock, on a field day, showing the unit how to fire . a rifle grenade: or of Parliament’s senior clerk, a mild, dignified man, hurling a Mills bomb at a target in a choking cloud of smoke, the rattle of small arms fire all around, one imagines that even Totalitarian powers would be hard put to it not to confess that for Democracy time, after all. marches on. All these Parliamentary guardsmen have been grounded in the arts of war. They have been drilled: they have been taken to secluded country places to learn the best methods of demolishing tanks, tackling parachute troops, improvising defences in depth. There is heavy irony in the choice of Tom Wintringham. who secured useful experience as commander of the British battalion of the International Brigade fighting Franco in the Spanish War, to give them the best advice on In London, to keep their hand in, they practise rifle-shooting at a minalure range beneath the House of Lords. Indeed, never since Guy Fawkes secreted his legendary four-and-twenty barrels of gunpowder in the Houses of Parliament has there been so much explosive material within Parliament’s bounds. Bomb-shattered, nobly bearing scars already received in the greatest of all the stern procession of wars waged down the seven centuries of their existence the Houses of Parliament were never in a better position to display vigour than they are to-day. “IF IT IS TIIEIR DESTINY . . An historic collection of labyrinthian passageways, lofty halls, musty alcoves, antique conference chambers, wealthy libraries, famous smokingrooms, some rare treasures, rambling corridors, dank vaults, topped by the world’s best known clock, they are symbolic of the great British traditions of human worth and dignity, of the grand victorious summits of freedom to which the British Empire has clambered through hard, often bitter, years. If it is their destiny to lie in ashes, a mound of rubble, the spirit embodied within their walls will prove indestructible. Clearly they are not military targets. Neither is Buckingham Palace, nor Windsor Castle, nor the greywhite block of St. Thomas’s Hospital on the bank of the Thames opposite Westminster, all of which have been deliberately attacked. “I saw the bombs falling” the King said after one desperate daylight attack on Buckingham Palace. Well might the Nazi hierarchy, sitting in high council, decide on a cold calculation that the blasting into fragments of these citadels of democracy would have a tremendous symbolic value among some Fascist and other neutrals. Fire bombs have hit them already. High explosives, thudding nearby, have blown out many a window. It is estimated that it costs the nation about £350,000 annually to run Parliament, the average cost to every person being two or three pence. This cannot be said to be excessive when it is remembered . that a wireless license costs ten shillings, and that Parliament provides more

'chances for argument at homo, in the pubs, or the clubs, besides sometimes offering more ludicrous entertainment than does the 8.8. C. LIBERTIES IN PAWN 1 watched the nation put all its liberties, all its rights to property, in i pawn to the State for the duration ; when, unanimously, it let its members j pass the Emergency Powers Bill at the j outbreak of war—a bill unprecedented I in its vast scope. ! This was the greatest single act. j demonstrating abounding trust in : representative legislative institutions, j ever made by any nation within the j framework of our civilisation. I An unseen side of Parliament is as ; fascinating as the widely-known i legislative side. More than 1500 j people work in the Commons includj ing the members. Scores of them are I printers, builders (repair gangs are | constantly at work; Big Ben’s tower (has been in “splints" for two years); nurses, telegraphists, ushers in full j evening dress, secretaries, postmen, cleaners, barmaids, Hansard’s staff. A great deal of Parliament's vital work is done in drafting committee rooms, unimpressive cubicles many of them. In the celebrated Press rooms in the Commons. into which not even the Prime Minister can stroll without an invitation, is a collection of black and white portraits and caricatures of politicians by famous artists. It is among the finest to be found in Britain. Peers tried unsuccessfully to get it for their House. The collection in the members’ bar is not half so good. Approaches to the precincts, even in the halcyon days. are heavily guarded. The majority of constables have been on duty there for so long that a newcomer is spotted on sight. No restaurant in London provides a better three-course meal for three shillings. the fixed charge. That, as much as anything, accounts for many members having their meals in the Commons’ dining-room. Waiters do not get rich on tips, however. A halfpenny is not infrequently found under a member's plate. A malicious story goes that one member, not wishing to set himself a bad example in extravagance, and having in copper only a penny and a farthing, borrowed a farthing so that he could leave his habitual halfpenny and not undertip! PEWTER TANKARDS If it pleases you, and you can secure the invitation, you can drink in the bars from the pewter tankards of notable statesmen and distinguished journalists, take tea on the lovely terrace with a Minister, or play chess on the board at which Gladstone tried his hand. Sitting in the Commons sometimes, I used to wonder why the draughty ill-ventilated Chamber, panelled in brown oak, never got lighter or darker, irrespective of whether the skies were brilliantly blue or black with cloudy night. Then I discovered that to keep the light at an almost unvarying strength is a design. The huge blinds to the Gothic windows, like the "fading” lighting system, are controlled by an electric switchboard. It is the only genuinely theatrical effect to be found there, some members* amateurishly theatrical ges-

Its acoustic quality, undoubtedly, is the worst of several bad, some '■ of them antiquated, features of the . Chamber. I know of no other such place in which even the keenest hearing is frequently of not the 1 slightest use. Lolling in their upright leather benches, it seems at times that members, watching a member who is going through all the motions of addressing them, are taking part in a noiseless pantomime. Yet, although if Fox or Burke, Disraeli or Gladstone returned this afternoon, they might be surprised to find tht Commons smoking-room ■ serving at night as a guardroom, but they would also find that as a vital organism the institution was, perhaps, even stronger than when their personalities dominated it.