Balfour and the meaner creatures who were ready to do Mr. Balfour's
work. Mr. Carson, not a year in the House, places his hands on the box,
then on his hips, with all the airs of a man who had been in Parliament
for a lifetime--attacks Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Morley, Mr. Justice
Mathew--three of the highest-minded and ablest men of their time--as
though he were at Petty Sessions, with Mr. Cecil Roche dispensing
justice. It is an odious sight. It makes even Englishmen shudder. But it
has its uses. It throws on to the floor of the House of Commons with all
the illumination of those great times, the abysses and passions and
sinister figures in Ireland's moving tragedy.
CHAPTER VII.
A FORTNIGHT OF QUIET WORK.
[Sidenote: Dulness.]
The House did very good work during the last fortnight in March. This
has a corollary more satisfactory to the public than to the journalist;
for, whenever business is progressing, it invariably means that the
proceedings have been extremely dull. It is a well-known phenomenon of
the House of Commons, that the moment there is a chance of anything like
a personal scene--though the encounter be of the smallest possible
moment and affect nothing beyond two personalities of no particular
importance--it is well known that whenever such scene is promised, the
benches of the House of Commons prove too small for the huge crowds that
rush to them from all parts.
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