“BORN RULER.”

Sir Frederick Banbury’s place was taken by Viscount Curzon. The former will be much gratified by the Speaker’s genial references to his mastery in the arts of obstruction, especially on Friday afternoons, and by the manner of approbation which greeted Mr. Whitley’s remark that “the House had a very tender place in its heart for the late Member for the City.” Mr. Marriott walked up to his old seat as though he had not been absent for a whole year; Colonel Gretton was in the corner which makes him look as though he led the Ulstermen; Sir Henry Crain. frowned magisterially from his accustomed spot.

The proceedings lasted about an hour. They began by the entry of Black Rod, who called the Commons to the other House. Mr. Baldwin rose to obey; Mr. Macdonald moved to his side. The House watched curiously the two protagonists. Some one, it sounded like

Mr. Will Thorne, shouted “Shake hands!” So they “shook” and went down the floor together like rival captains, chatting.

When they came back and the House re-formed, the senior clerk at the table rose and pointed his finger at Sir Ellis Hume-williams, who was to move Mr. Whitley’s re-election to the Chair, and the tall K.C. delivered himself of a graceful speech, in which he said – in effect – that the Chair was a mighty difficult post to fill, but that Mr. Whitley was the very man to fill it, a born ruler and a born diplomat, quick but not too quick, perfectly impartial, kind but firm, able to see and to hear, yet able to overlook and be timely deaf. The old hands know the story by heart, but it comes up fresh every time, and the House applauded joyfully – as it always does – all the compliments paid to it no less than those paid to Mr. Whitley – who smokes a pipe, so we learnt from Sir Ellis Hume-williams, when he unbends from the great dignity of the Chair.

Mr. O’grady followed, and assured Mr. Whitley that when his term of office was over he would still find the “social structure intact above his head,” whatever the timorous might say. The Socialist member for East Leeds was agreeably reminiscential, and recalled a day when he himself had collided with the Chair and was bruised in consequence. Nor once only. Those with good memories may recall Mr. O’grady in a real Irish rage slamming his order paper on the floor and saying, as he walked out of the House, “I call it a damned shame.” But yesterday he kissed and blessed the rod and thanked the goodness and the grace.

Then came the mild sensation of the hour. Colonel Ward rose from the far recesses of the House and lodged a vigorous protest against the inveterate tendency which parties show to ignore the private member, and the tendency even of Speakers to ignore the well-behaved member who obeys the rules and show placating favour to the disorderly ones by giving them more than their fair share of attention. In part this was just the elder brother’s grumbling protest against the unfair preferential treatment which prodigals always obtain, but there was real force in the objection that since the party Whips hand in to the Chair the lists of their own members who wish to speak, the solitary independent member finds himself crowded out time after time. Colonel Ward spoke with some feeling, and his Socialist ex-colleagues obviously did not wish to hear him. But he had his say out to the end, and after all he made it quite clear that he meant no reflection on Mr. Whitley. Sir Charles Wilson, one of the Leeds members, desired to add a few words, but as Sir Charles – he has quite another nickname in Leeds – forgot that the place where he was sitting under the gallery is technically outside the Chamber, at least for the purpose of addressing it, his contribution was lost,