ROWDINESS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 24, 13 September 1911, Page 3

ROWDINESS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

It has come to lie, a .common .article of belief that the present Parliament is incapable of those eruptions which occasionally marked the career of predecessors (writes Sir Henry Lucy in the “Sydney Morning Herald”). The outbreak of Monday frees it from this deputation. It lias, indeed, beaten the •word. There are many cases of shooing down au obnoxious private mciner. There is no precedent of a Viinc Minister charged with the dciverv of a momentous message at a i;ivc constitutional crisis, being howl’d down and after a struggle of forty ninutes compelled to resume bis scat, is speech undelivered. The free iri-bt in Committee' on 1 lie second dome Rule Bill still holds the place of ride in flic record of House of Comlions rowdiness. It began, it wiM be remembered, with Mr Chamberlain s •mnparison of Mr Gladstone to King Herod at the moment preceding the •.troke of awful fate brought down ■ poll him by a reign of unrelieved wickedness. Good Conservatives madly •becred the reference, which they thought particularly apt. But. when 1 flic Irish members, not to be outdone

in force of Biblical allusion, retorted with cry of “Judas, Judas,” articulated words could not give adequate expression to their outraged feelings, and their jealousy J’o.r the maintenance of decent order in debate. Hence the fisticuffs. From this it will appear that -the historic outbreak oi 185)3 was spontaneous, rising unexpeclodly in course of debate. Therein it differs from Monday night’s performance. That partook of the character of an ambush secretly organised by a section of the Opposition. In addition to resentment against the degradation of the House of Common; which tilled the public mind, and tc their credit ho it said, has found expression at a meeting attended by tin better class of Unionist members, tlibtaint of treachery makes the outrage unforgiveable.