THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 78

THE SKETCHER.

PARLIAMENT FROM THE GREEN

ROOM.*

| In these entertaining pages, to which IMr Griffith-Boscawen has devoted the i leisure allowed to him by his defeat at ! tlie last general election, there aie many ' instructive and many amusing peeps behind the scenes. The time has come when ' members can unlock their cabinets and tell i such secrets as they know of the events of ! the two Parliaments in which Mr Balfour ■ wye the predominant and controlling | spirit ; and already, though it be but yesj teiday, these Parliaments have receded | into such immeasurable remoteness that j anybody can discuss them without parti- | sunehip and without bitterness. There is , no bitterness in Mr Griffith-Boccawen ; r*pw and then there is some partisanship, but that only means that Mr GriffithBoscawen is human, and that he finds it even now quite impossible to be altogether just now and then to men who held opposite views during strenuous and even passionate times and controversies. For myself, having lived through the times and scenes described by our author, I have been vastly entertained by his story of them, and now and then have even _been stirred again by the memory of some of the dramatic scenes which he admirably describes. Though the chronological order of the 14 sessions of Parliament during which the author served is fairly well maintained, there is necessarily a certain discursiveness in such a volume, and the poor reviewer must be pardoned if he also be somewhat discursive. I pick up the items that strike and interest me as they aie scattered through the volume ; the reader must go to the book itself for the connected story. One of the first passages which attracted my attention was that which described incidents during — The Great Home Rule Session of 1892— and the two following sessions. Never was I in a Parliament which made such exacting demands tipor those who supported the Government of the day. As may be remembered, Mr Gladstone — much to his disappointment — returned from the general election with a majority of only 40, and that majority so heterogeneous that it could never be depended on from day to dny. I was one of those who were general supporters of the Government, and I remember how my heart used to leap to my mouth if I found myself entering New Palace Yard fiye minutes after the House was timed to meet ; you never knew what ambuscade might be sprung upon the Government, and therefore you were nevei safe to be absent for even a moment. The ranks of the Opposition were just as hardly treated as those of the Government, as will testify this little episode which Mr Griffith-Boscawen tells. A debate was initiated on the Queen's Spech by Mr Chamberlain, which practically was a ■vote of want of confidence in the Government. "I did not hear the debate," 1 plaintively remarks Mr Griffith-Boscawen, "as, like many other members, I was laid up with influenza, but at the urgent request of the Whips I was dragged out of bed and driven down in a closed carriage • to the House, so as to take part in the division. When I got there I was placed in a warm room behind the Speaker's ohair, where were two other Unionist members in the same condition as myself ; in the Opposition room were three supporters of the Government similarly situated, so that we might all have been paired and remained in bed. But the Whips on each side were determined not to lose any vote which could by any means be recorded, with the result that we aM risked our lives, and doubtless spread the influenza germs far and wide through the Palace at Westminster. The Government carried the day by a majority of 14 only." After all that was some justification of the action of the Whips on both sides, cruel though it may appear to have been. In that terrible time when Lord Rosebery> had succeeded to Mr Gladstone, and he and Sir William Harcourt — his most important colleague — were at almost open war, we had one of the sorriest spectacles I ever remember to have seen in my Parliamentary life. If ever I had any leaning towards proportional representation, or any of the other devices which are intended to give a- more mathematically exact representation to the different sections of the community, these two sessions cured me, for Proportional Representation would undoubtedly reproduce in the British House of Commons that system of — Government by Groups — which has existed in France — a.t least since the Fall of the Empire, and of all forms of Government I don't know any that appears to me worse than Government by groups. Such a Government must always be so weak and so transient as to be without any authority, with the result that when it comes to a struggle with other nations and with crises that demand firmness, decision, and promptitude, it has none of the qualities which enable men to exhibit these virtues. Listen to this record in the book of some of the episodes, in one of these sessions when we had a Government and a House of Commons composed of groups. "On May 20, on an amendment moved by Mr Lloyd-George, it" — meaning the Government majority — "dropped to 10, and would have been a minus quantity but Mr Lloyd-George and his friends voted against their own amendment! The next night, on an amendment of Mr Macdona's, it was only nine, and that subsequently fell to seven." In this passage Mr GriffithBofioawen describes the scene in which the end came of one of the most inglorious Ministries we have ever had in British history • * " Fourteen Years *ii Pariiaineiu By A. VS. T Crriffi.th-Bosc*wen (Murray..}

Friday, June 21, was apparently a. j day of peace in the House. It was the ! week-epd Supply day, when many members invariably absented themselves, and, beyond this, the Army Estimates were under discussion, which generally ! implied a little quiet talk by a fewretired colonels, and passed without a division. The Chamber was very empty, most of the Ministers bein? on the ' terrace, where Sir William Harcourt is said to have remarked how pleasant it was to have a day without a crisis. But a plot had been hatched comparable only to the fifth of November, with the difference that the explosive employed was cordite and not gunpowder, and that, unlike the attempt of Guy Fawkes, it succeeded. ... A long discussion ensued, but nobody appeared to exp_ect a crisis. The debate was business-like, and the atmosphere of the House perfectly serene. But in anticipation of the division certain members of the Service Committee had privately urged their friends to make a special point of being in attendance that afternoon, with the result that theie was an unexpected muster of Unionists present. When the division wae taken, after much &buißing of places, the Clerk finally handed the paper with the numbers to Mr AkersDouglas. the Opposition Whip, the figures being: For the amendment, 132; against, 125. There was naturally great excitement, as great, indeed, as was possible in so small a House, and Mr Campbell-Bannerman jumped up, threw his papers into his hat, and at once moved the adjournment of the debate. The other orders of the day were at once taken, and the House adjourned in confusion. This ivas the end of the Rosebery Government. — A Historic Division. — There is one little item in connection with this historic division which Mr Griffith-Boscawen does not mention, but which I have heard described more than once since. Those who are acquainted with the Lnner life of the House of Commons will know that members enter by a door leading to what is called the Inner Lobby — the ■ Lobby that leads into the House of Commons ; and that all around this door and in the Inner Lobby there are people — first the Whips and then the attendants of their department — whoee duty it is to take a note of the nam© of every member as he enters through this door* and a« he passes out through it. In that way the Whips know the exact condition of the House, and especially Whether the supporters of the Government are in a majority or not. On this particular Friday the members of the Oppoei- ! tion, amid many other devices which they adopted for concealing their real strength from the Whips of the Government, instructed a number of their supporters to enter the House, not by the door into the Innex Lobby, but on© of tthe many other modes of entrance, and so their real forces were able to execute Jn the House of Commons a manoeuvre which in military history is called an ambuscade. I make a big skip, and come on to the nmch more recent times when Mr Balfour was nearing the end of his Ministry. Here Mr GTiffith-Boscawen is moet interesting and most valuable, for here it is that he gives us glimpses of the — Tangled Intrigues and Manoeuvres — which were going on behind the scenes in the Unionist Party. In juat a few words Mr Griffith-Boscawen sums up the position of his party as well as of himself in those very trying times. "Mr Balfour's intermediate policy," he writes, - 'on3y made the position* of Unionist candidates more difficult than it was before. 'Do you follow Mr Balfour or Mr Chamberlain? 1 was a question which I was frequently asked at meetings. If I said 'Mr Chamberlain,' I was at once charged with disloyalty to the leader of my party; if I said 'Both,' the meeting quickly showed that it could not believe that." The naivete of this avowal does not make it the lees valuable. This division of feeling led to one of the strangest episodes ever witnessed at Westminster, and here we hay« the whole secret springs of this episode for the first time revealed. I give tie story in the words of Mr GriffithBoscawen himself : Mr Pirie, a Scottish Radical member, had obtained by the ballot the evening of March 9 for a private members' resolution, and lie had placed upon the paper the following resolution : — "That this House, noting the continued agitation in favour of preferential and protective tariffs, which is encouraged by th© language used by certain of his Majesty's Ministers, deems it necessary to express its condemnation of any such policy." The words were skilfully chosen, as they were designed to catch the Free Fooders en bloc, thus causing the Government to have a very email majority in the division, with the possibility (though not the probability) of their- being defeated. We wondered what course the Government intended to take, but had no intimation till the morning of the 9th, when there appeared on the Order Paper an amendment in the name of Mr Wiharton, one of the oldest and most respected members of the party, to the effect that the House "approved of the explicit declaration of the Government that their policy of Fiscal Reform did not include either, a general system of Protection or Preference baeed on the taxation of food." . . The wording of the Whip that morning clearly indicated that the amendment had been put down with the knowledge and probably at the suggestion of the Govemmnt, and that they intended to support it. It was, however, clearly impossible for the Tariff Reformers to vote for it. It meant condemning what they had beenadvooating in' the country v)t the last gix months. Directly I read the Whip I wired to a dozen members of the Tariff Reform Committee to meet in my room at the House at 2.15. We met — Sir Herbert Maxwell, Mr Chaplin, Mr i Pike Pease, Ms Goulding, Mr Paxker

Smith, and others. We agreed that on no account could we support the Wharton amendment, and that we would* assemble a general meeting of the Ta-riff Reformers at once. All the afternoon Mr Goulding aud I spent in the Lobby whipping up for the meeting, which took place at 6 o'clock in one of- the committee rooms, and was attended by 112 members. The greatest enthusiasm . and unanimity prevailed, and we. decided we must vote against the Government unless the Wharton amendment were withdrawn, and an intimation to that effect was at once conveyed ■ to the Whips. When the House rei assembled at 9 o'clock for the evening sitting it had disappeared from the Agenda paper. . . . The vote was taken, and the Government had a. majority of 46. ... They were 6aved by the Tariff Reformers. Such is the story as told by one of the chief actors. I think it a tragic story, but then Mr Griffith-Boscawen would not understand what I mean. —Mr Balfour. — I pass on to the passages in lighter vein. There's a sharp dig at some one very close to Mr Balfour in the following little passage: — I have never ceased to believe that Mr Balfour himself waa not really hostile to us, but a certain clique of understrappers and wirepullers acting in his name did untold mischief. Most of us inside the House of Commons know who is meant ; but it is not my business. Here is an excellent bit of criticism on the party meeting which i*6 so often called when the leaders are in a difficulty ; to anybody who understands the machinery of politics it will appeal as a very rational and accurate account of such gatherings : A meeting of the party was summoned' , at the Carlton Club. Now, of all futile expedients, the party meetings always btruck me as the most futile. There is a- large gathering of members of both Houses anxious to get through the business with as much dispatch as possible. A few minutes later the leader of the party arrives, escorted by his principal lieutenants and his private secretary,, the Chief Whip being well to the fore. Applause greets him, and he proceeds I to expound the object of tbe meeting, ! which usually ia bow to extricate the j party from some tangle into which they ' nave been got in the ' Houge of Commons. Hie plan may be good or it may be bad, but it i« equally applauded ; i and when he Tesumeß his seat, three or four old and quite reliable M.P.'s, coming from different parts of the country, arise and express their -entire approval. Their parts have been well reheareed.^ Possibly, however, there are some present who doubt the wisdom of the plan, but if they attempt to say so are voted bores, and probably refused a hearing by the majority, who are eager either ! to show their loyalty or to get lunch, or both. Finally, here is a delightful glimpse of Mr Balfour in his relations with hia colleagues ; Mr Chaplin was conducting a. bill through the House. "Mr Chaplin's conduct of the bill in committee was not | always happy," comments Mr GrifEt<h- [ Bosoawen ; while, on the other hand, "Sir Robert Finlay, the Solicitor-general, was frequently put up to elucidate the more obscure and technical provisions, and greatly distinguished himself." On« evening Sir Wm. Harcourt bad given a, slashing criticism on an amendment; "Mr Chnplin responded in a great speech, which left the House very much irhere it was before" : When he sat down the following conversation was iverheard on the Treasury Bench. Mr Cha/plin: "Was that all right, Arthur?" Mr Balfour: "Excellent, Harry, old chap, excellent!" Then, leaning over to th© Solicitor-gene-ral : "I think, Finlay, you had better get up now and explain the clause." It is no wonder that we old Parliamentary stagers have such a sneaking liking for Mr Balfour.— T. P., in T. P.'b Weekly. JAPANESE APPRECIATION 6F INDIA. REMARKABLE "STATEMENT BY COUNT OKUMA. Count Okuma, an ex-Premier of Japan, called by some th© "«nfant terrible of Japan, and in. any case the supreme Japanese orator, has been aaying some very striking things about India and the relations of Great Britain wad Japan to it. —Hindu Debt to .England. — Count Okuma spoke of India at the firefc meeting in Tokio of th© Indo-Japanees Association, of which he i* president. The Times reports him as saying : — India was the fountain-head of civilisation. She excelled all other »untries in ancient times in religion, literature, art, and industry, and it was almost impossible to nam© a country either in- the East or in the West that had not been more or less influenced by Indian civilisation. Now, however, she had fallen on evil days, and for this she had la-rgely to thank her caste system, her religion, and her languages, which number, including dialecte, ov<r 500. After explaining %aw these three causes had impeded Indian development, Count Okuma proceeded : — •We are informed that some natives of the country have recently been eryiafe for independence against the British Administration. Nothing could be more ill-considered or foolish. . . Let them abolish their own pernicious system and customs to start with, and elevate themselves up to the mark of the English-, men in character,, in morality, in knowledge, then they need not bother them--selves about struggling for independence, • for freedom will come to them of itself. , But if they should be too eagerly ep- , gaged in blaming others to reflect upon themselves and be convinced of their own, faults, the ttar of India will sink for eves below the hmizon. not to rise up again.

— The Spirit of the Anglo-Saxon. —

'" I aaseit that the Hindus have every Teaeon to express their heartfelt gratitude to the English fox their benevolence. For was it not owing to the British Government that Hindustan came to see for the first time the unification of the whole dominion in the proper meaning of the word? Was it not owing to the same benefactor that the native race enjoy -the int-ereeie of civilised instruments and modern science? Their railway, their telegraph, thair post — these are all the gifts of their conquerors' Government. Their education and their sanitation are also the gracious boons of the same guardian. Again, they are indebted to the British. Government for an excellent police system, for the mitigation of disastrous consequences of droughts and pestilences, and for an admirable administrative system. And during a century of the political hegemony of Great Britain in India the idea, ol unification has first been germinating in the b3ads of the Hindu natives, the national Congress having been convened with a view to political improvement on one side, and Brahma feamaj, Arya Samaj, and some such movements having sprung upon the other to lessen, the xeligious evils with which they have been afflicted so long. These are also the advantages they have obtained — directly or indirectly — in consequence of their being in the power of the British Government. The first step to be taken by the native races on Indian soil, situated as they aTe now, is to avail themselves of tie example of the bast peoples on earth, and to improve the social conditions of their own country. Their only chance for the present is to be willing to remain quiet under the auspices of British Government, to get rid of their corrupt practices, to endeavour to invigorate the national spirit, to do their utmost to sublimate their character and thus to exalt their country's position to the same level with Canada, Australia, or Cape Colony. " The present generation of Hindus, could not be too repeatedly exhorted to bear in mind that they are happy because they are ruled by Great Britain. England is a truly liberal country, and a generous oue as well, and the Emperor of India and King of England is a benevolent Sovereign peerless under the sun. The spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race is a crystal of righteousness and humanity. Englishmen bpast themselves that their race is the most excellent in the world. This 36 not a pride emanating from their patriotic hearts only, for, to judge impartially, in some respects it is really so, and even pioud Frenchmen admit its truth. The facts prove this. Go where you may on the surface of the earth, to America, to 'Australia, or to Africa, you- are sure to fin-.l the descendants of the Anglo-Saxon taking the lead as' reclaimers of civilisation.' — Independence a Visionary Scheme. —

After exhorting Indians to imitate the example of other countries and make themselves fit for independence, the speaker went on : —

" A rising or a declining nation is signalised by the presence or absence of the introspective faculty just alluded to. ' Independence' is a pet subject of the Hindus' conversation. To struggle to break loose from the British yoke in pursuance of independence is a plausible as well as reasonable' thought, but it is really a. visionary scheme — an impossibility. A nation is entitled to talk of independence only after it has entirely abolished its own evil customs, ennobled its own. character, and attained the same qualifications as any other powerful or rising nation. Neither the evolution theory nor any • modern advanced thought admits that the evils consequent on the Hindu caste system and religious superstitions should have a place in any civilised nation."

— The Germ of Destruction. —

Count Okuma went on. to draw a 'parallel between the fall of the Roman. Empire and that of other great countries, including India, and concludes that the germ of destruction, resides within a State, ad not without. "Wood will get rotten befoTe it is worm-eaten." ■ From ancient times onwards the realm was attacked or subjugated (many a time) by a foreign foe, and then, being invaded by Spain, Portugal, France, or •Engand, the destruction of its immense riches and the degradation of its industry, arts, and literature were completed. And who is for all this? I say it was not any of these aggressors, but India herself, that annihilated the realm.' " Far ' from being satisfied with the present state of things, the Japanese, every time they tarn their eyes to the .•world jtch to avail themselves of any superior of other nations, and that •is the reason why they have sprung up eso suddenly. True, up to 40 years ago our country,, like India, had had a caste system of its own ; but scarcely had its weak points been discovered when it wa« dismissed, and all the people came to be equalised in rank and right. This was - a cause of our rising up. ' I question ■whether the Hindus will muster up courage enough to do the same. Upon this hinges jthe future destin- of India." The Count went on to warn the Indians against the foolish disturbance created by their Swadeshi movements, and exhorts them once more, "as a sincere and intimate friend of the Indian nation," to ■root out their antiquated customs and bad habits, and to work out their own salyation.