THE INS AND OUTS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 49

THE INS AND OUTS

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, July 28. Outside of Parliament and the newspaper©, the rumpus in Parliament created very little excitement. Perhaps people are beginning to see the hollowness of" the party game, perhaps they are more interested in the test match, the races and the weather. For one thing, the British House of Commons is representative mainly of the wealthy class, which, it need hardly be said, is a very small proportion of British public. For another, it is largely composed of gentlemen whose interest in politics is subordinate to the promotion of their private interests. The spectacle of the “Ins” and the “Outs” hurling violent recriminations at each other is only mildly exhilarating to the He knows well enough that when the “Outs do fight their way into the stronghold of office their virtuous indigination as the attacking-party will be replaced by the injured innocence appropriate to defendants, and that it will then be the turn of the ejected party to be virtuous and in- * dignant. Of course the newspapers made the moist, of the crisis, and to read the different versions of the scene in the House by sketch-writers' of opposite political ‘ “colour” was positively bewildering. In the Radical journals Mr Balfour was depicted as cringing and cowering under the deadly fire of polished, Ciceronian invective launched at his' wretched head by that mighty orator, Winston Churchill. His reply was stigmatised as “feminine sarcasm,” “a petulant retort,” and so on. Turning to the Tory papers, you found that th© Prime Minister had emerged with flying colours and utterly confounded his adversaries. Winston's Philippic became in their columns merely a torrent of vulgar abuse, drawing down upon its luckless owner “a dignified and welldeserved rebuke.” One Ministerial paper, heavily satirical, remarked that “Mr Winston Churchill intervened, only to recall an advertisement of Pear's s>ap much in vogue a few years ago, and too well remembered to need specification.” This I suppose, is a polite way of saying, “You dirty boy!” In the leading articles the battle of the parties was fought with refreshing virulence. The good old ‘‘Daily News” nearly choked with frantic indignation at the spectacle of a Government with a working majority of sixty or seventy daring to remain in office. Had the tension lasted another day its stock of abusive adjectives—an exceptionally large and varied assortment —must assuredly have run dry. “What about Gladstone,” the “Daily Telegraph” would retort, “beaten nine times in one session on vital issues? Why didn't the Radicals move a vote of censure last night? Who ran away? Yah!” Th© last word wasn't actually printed, but that was the general effect of the retort. As for the net result of the rumpus, it seems to amount to this: Balfour's authority weakened considerably; prospect of an autumn dissolution more probable; Chamberlain and party more anxious than ever to go to the country; Campbell-Bannerman completely overshadowed by John Redmond a© leader of the attack on the Government. But the great 8.P., or at any rate the London section of it, has viewed all these phenomena strangely unmoved. Perhaps the following little anecdote by a well-known London journalist will throw some light upon the mystery. “On Friday,” he says, “I sat next to a mechanic in an omnibus. ‘Henry has got the worst of it again,' said Jhe. Having just read a Liberal paper full of gloating exultation at the turn of parliamentary affairs, I ventured the opinion that Sir Henry had not got the worst of it. n Well, here y'are,' responded the rider, producing a pink document from his pocket. 'Eclipse Stakes—Henry the First walked in with the crowd.' Then I realised how easy it is for two great minds to be fixed on different things.”