Sketches in the House. T. P. O'Connor

was delayed.

      The government and private members.

      There is always something foredoomed about a night which ends in a count-out. You can almost feel its untimely end in the air at the very beginning of the sitting. There is always a great to-do about doing away with the privileges of the private member, but I have never really seen anything like a strong desire on the part of the House generally to keep the small quorum together which is necessary for giving the private member his opportunity. To the uninitiated, it is perhaps necessary to say that the sittings of the House are divided into two classes—what are called Government and what are called private members' nights. Government nights are Mondays and Thursdays. On these days, the Government is entirely master of the time of the House. They can bring on Government Bills and in whatever order they please. On Tuesdays and on Wednesdays the private member is master of the situation—that is to say, until the Government of the day get leave of the House to take all its time, and then the rights of private members disappear. On Fridays also the private member is in possession of most of the time of the sitting. That is the night on which the Government sets up Supply—that is to say, puts down the votes for the money required for the public service. It is a fundamental principle of the British Constitution that the demand for money involves the right to raise any grievance; and accordingly Supply on Friday night is always preceded by motions in reference to any subject which any member may desire to raise. These motions are put on the paper, but so inherent is the right to raise any grievance before giving money, that a member is entitled to get up, and without a moment's notice, raise any question which may appear to him desirable for discussion. As a rule, however, there is but one question fought out, and when that is decided the Government of the day is allowed to go on to the votes for money.

      Parliamentary Wednesdays.

      Wednesday is nearly always occupied with some Bill brought in by a private member, in which a large number of other members are interested. It used to be said that Wednesday was sacred to the churches and the chapels, and that only a religious debate could take place. This is still the case to a large extent; for instance, on Wednesday, February 22nd, they employed themselves at the House in discussing a Bill in which Dissenters are very much interested. Then, a division has to be taken at half-past five, and thus there is a good chance of a practical discussion with a practical result. The consequence is that Wednesday sittings are always looked forward to with a considerable interest, and it is always with a pang that the House gives up the right of the private member to them. A Wednesday sitting is rarely, if ever, counted out, and, indeed, I believe there is a rule which prevents them from being counted out before four o'clock, at which hour the late-comers find it possible to turn up. Friday sittings also rarely, if ever, end badly, for the Government is ever in want of money, and a Government has always forty staunch supporters who are ready to stay in the House in order to help it to get through its business. But Tuesday belongs to no man in particular. The Government don't bother themselves about it, because they don't have money to get at the end of it: instead of its being occupied with one Bill, which can raise a definite discussion, Tuesday has a number of motions on all sorts and kinds of subjects; and, in short, what's everybody's business is nobody's; and Tuesday constantly ends about eight or half-past eight o'clock in a count-out. The Government delightedly look on; it is an additional argument in favour of taking away the rights and privileges of private members and turning them into the voracious maw of the Government.

      Wales in a rage.

      A curious difference presented itself between the interior and the exterior of the House on the following day (February 23rd). Inside, there was for the most part a desert, yawning wide and drear, except on the benches which were occupied by the sons of Wales; while outside in the outer lobbies surged a wild, tumultuous, excited crowd, eagerly demanding admission from everybody who could be expected to have the least chance of giving it. Every Welshman in the world seemed to have got there. I saw Mr. Ellis Griffiths—an impassioned and brilliant Welsh orator who ought to be in the House; my friend, whom I used to know as Howell Williams, and I now have to call Mr. "Idris," as if he were an embodied mineral water, and many others. The secret was that the night was devoted to the Suspensory Bill for the Established Church in Wales, and anybody who knows Welshmen, will know that this is a question on which Welsh blood incontinently boils over. Terse, emphatic, business-like Mr. Asquith put the case for Disestablishment on the plain and simple ground that the Established Church was the church of the rich minority, and that the overwhelming majority of the Welsh representation had been returned over and over again to demand Disestablishment.

      The cynical Gorst.

      Sir John Gorst has an icy manner and generally the air of a man who has not found the world especially pleasant, and delights to take rather a pessimistic view of things. His great argument was that if this Bill were carried, young men would not find enough of coin to tempt them into the Church, and that accordingly it would languish and fade away. To such a prosaic view of the highest spiritual vocation, the unhappy Tories listened with ill-concealed vexation, and Gorst once more increased that distrust of his sincerity in Toryism which perhaps accounts for the small progress he has made in the ranks of his party.

      Randolph again.

      Throughout the night the debate languished, though there was an excellent speech from Mr. Stuart Rendel on behalf of the Welsh party. This was practically the only speech from that side; for perceiving that the game of the Tories was to talk against time, the Welshmen wisely declined to aid them, and sate dumb, unless when they snorted defiance at some absurd claim or fanciful exaggeration on the other side. At ten minutes past ten, however, quite a different complexion was given to the whole debate by the rise of Lord Randolph Churchill. He had not yet recovered his old mastery of himself or the House; but his appearance was very different from what it was a few nights earlier. There was no longer that constant trembling of the hands which made it almost painful to look at him; the voice did not shake painfully, and there was a certain recurrence of that old self-confidence. But still he was far from what he used to be. The once resonant voice was somewhat muffled and hoarse, accompanied by a certain tendency to feverish exaggeration of language—in fact, the old Fourth Party methods of almost conscious playing to the gallery. However, it was a good fighting speech, and the Tories had been so depressed by the bad speaking on their own side, and by the solid bench opposite of cheering, snorting, defiant, but distinctly practical Welshmen, that they were delighted, and cheered admiringly.

      Olympian wrath.

      The intimates of Mr. Gladstone declare that composure is perhaps the most remarkable of his many qualities. In the midst of a Cabinet crisis he would hand you a postage-stamp as though it were the sole matter that concerned him. But it is also said by his intimates that he has possibilities of Olympian wrath which almost frighten people. He was certainly roused to a passion by Lord Randolph—very much to the advantage and delight of the House of Commons; for during the earlier portion of the evening, and especially while the speech of Mr. Asquith was being delivered, there was an impression that he did not look very happy. It is known that he is still fondly devoted to the Church, and it was suspected that though his convictions were settled on the necessity of doing away with the Establishment in Wales, it was not the kind of work to which he went with any zest. But Lord Randolph roused the Old Lion within him, and with flashing eye, with a voice the resonance of which echoed through the House as though he were twenty years younger—with abundance of gesticulation, and sometimes with swinging blows that were almost cruel—he slew the young intruder and wound up the debate on the Church in a frenzy of excitement and delight among his followers.

      Mr. Kenyon.

      There came, then, a series of incidents which threw the House into convulsions of rancorous scorn and farcical laughter. Earlier in the evening there had been a speech by Mr. Kenyon. Words fail to describe the kind of speech Mr. Kenyon delivers. Sometimes one is doubtful as to the sex of the speaker, for he moans out his lamentations over "the dear old Church of England" exactly as one would imagine a sweet old lady with a gingham umbrella and a widow's cap to intone it. Meantime, the rest of the House is convulsed with laughter, so that there is the curious contrast of one man—Punch-like in complexion and face—reciting a dirge while the rest of the House are holding their universal sides with laughter. The anger came when Sir Henry James and Mr. T.W.