May 3rd 1916: Parliament Debates the Easter Rising |
Tuesday, April 25th. – The Government, which has sometimes been accused of not having sufficient confidence in the House of Commons, has made ample amends. Information about the Army, too grave to be imparted to the people who provide the men and the means for maintaining it, is to be freely given to four or five hundred Members of Parliament (not to mention a similar number of Peers). THE PRIME MINISTER opened the Secret Session in one of his briefest speeches. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “ I beg, Sir, to call your attention to the fact that strangers are present.” The historic form of this advertisement, “I spy strangers,” is briefer still, but inadmissible in these ticklish times. One does not want to see, in the enemy Press, “British Prime Minister confesses to spying.” Then the Press Gallery was cleared, and the Great Inquest of the Nation became a Vehmgericht. The wretched scribe who should attempt to peer behind the veil that shrouds its proceedings has been warned in advance of the unnamed pains and penalties that await him if he should venture to describe or even “refer to” the proceedings of the Secret Session. I am unable to say, therefore, whether it is true that the occupants of the Treasury Bench forthwith donned helmets and gasmasks to protect themselves from the fiery darts and mephitic vapours launched at them from above and below the Gangway. One
of the picturesque details
the official report, compiled by MR. SPEAKER., who is understood to
have seized
the opportunity offered by his recent stay at All we learn from its severely restrained pages is that the PRIME MINISTER made a long statement about recruiting. From this we gather that if fifty thousand of the unattested married men do not enlist before the end of May they will be compelled to do so; and that altogether the Government will insist on getting 200,000 men from this source. The German General Staff will be surprised to learn that our requirements are so modest, and will wonder, as we do, what all the pother is about. Perhaps
Mr. LOWTHER did not take
notes of the other speeches that were delivered. At any rate he gives
us no
indication of their drift. All we know is that in the course of some
seven
hours no fewer than sixteen Members addressed the House. From this it
may be
inferred that the absence of reporters has at least the negative
advantage of
conducing to brevity of utterance. May we also infer that the speaking
was as
plain as it as it was brief, and that for the time being the Wednesday, April 26th:- So
far as we are permitted to
know what took place – for the House of Commons had another
Secret Session – in
both Houses it was Colonel
SHARMAN – CRAWFORD, who
bears a name that all The
PRIME MINISTER gave a brief
and, so far as it went, rosy-coloured report of the situation in This may have reminded Mr. ASQUITH that there were British journalists in the Press Gallery. The DEPUTY SPEAKER’S attention having been called to this fact, the House voted for their expulsion, and again passed into Secret Session. The
Lords were again in Open
Session, to the regret, perhaps, of the Government representatives, who
heard
some very plain speaking from Lord MIDLETON. According to his
information the
rebels were still in possession of important parts of Thursday, April 27th:- Mr.
GINNELL does not believe in
the supinences of the Irish Executive. His information is that quite a
long
time ago it had resolved to place The
PRIME MINSTER subsequently
announced that the situation still had “serious
features.” This mild phrase
covers the continued possession by the rebels of important parts of SIR EDWARD CARSON and Mr. JOHN REDMOND joined in expressing horror of this rebellion and hoped that the Press would not make it an excuse for reviving political dissension on Irish matters – a sufficient rebuke to The Westminster Gazette and The Star, both of which by a curious coincidence had found the moment auspicious for preaching the text of the old tag, “There but for the grace of God,” etc. Sir H. DALZIEL attempted to secure an immediate debate upon the Irish trouble. But the eminent Privy Councillor found little support in the House, and was first knocked down by the DEPUTY-SPEAKER and then trampled upon by Mr. ASQUITH. If the Secret Sessions were intended to make smooth the way of the Military Service Bill they failed miserably in their object. Mr. LONG, to whom was entrusted the task of introducing it, felt his position acutely. Only when explaining that one of the principal objects of the bill was to extend the service of time-expired soldiers for the duration of the War did he wax at all eloquent, and then it was in lauding the chivalry of these men and in expressing his extreme distaste for the task of coercing them. The whole speech justified the poet’s remark that “long petitions spoil the cause they plead.” Not a voice was heard in favour of the measure. Sir EDWARD CARSON damned it for not going far enough, and Mr. LEIF JONES because it went too far; and Mr. STEPHEN WALSH, as representative of the miners, who have given so much of their blood to the country’s cause, bluntly demanded that the House should reject this Bill “and insist on the straight thing.” Mr. ASQUITH, recalled to the House by his agitated colleague, recognised that his old Parliamentary hand had got into a hornet’s nest, and promptly withdrew it. To the best of my recollection this is the first time on record that a Government measure has perished before its first reading. Conceived in secrecy and delivered in pain, its epitaph will be that of another unhappy infant: “If
I was to be so soon done for I
wonder what I was begun for.” |