Delphi complete works of.., p.206
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 206
Paris, 4.15 p.m.
A certain measure of calm has been restored in Paris by the announcement that an entirely new ministry has been formed by the union of Mr. Caillaux — Mr. Poincaré — Mr. Painlevé and Mr. Briand. In a statement to the press Mr. Briand said that the old government had outlived its usefulness and that he welcomed the addition of Mr. Caillaux. A new budget would be made at once and would constitute, he said, the best budget of the last three weeks. This budget, which will absolutely ensure the stability of French finance will be based on a vote of National Credit supported by a Universal Loan and guaranteed by a Public Debt. Mr. Caillaux, whose financial genius never shone more brightly, is working out a tax, to replace the proposed capital levy and the income tax, and to be called the Tax on Somebody Else.
It is said in well-informed circles that if the government can be widened to include a royalist element and to take in a few communists and a bloc of socialists, its success will be assured. If it can then pursue a policy which will be sufficiently clerical and conservative while at the same time strongly socialist, with a touch of opportunism, it may last till Saturday.
Meantime the theatres are all open, work is plentiful, everybody is happy, Paris is bright with spring flowers, the hotels are full of Americans dripping with money, the new fashions are said to be simply charming, the skirts don’t reach anywhere, the watering places are wetter than ever — so what does a little thing like a government matter?
The Mother of Parliaments
But What has Lately Gone Wrong With Mother?
“The House of Commons,” says the well known Guide Book to London of Today, “not inaptly called the Mother of Parliaments, is undoubtedly the most august, as it is the most venerable, of the great representative assemblies of the world. It is with something like awe that we penetrate into the stillness of Westminster Palace, and find ourselves presently looking down from our privileged place in the gallery upon the earnest group of men whose measured tones and dignified formalities are deciding the fate of an empire.”
That is what the Guide Book has been saying about the House of Commons for some two hundred years. But in reading over the press reports of the debates of the House within the last year or so as they come across the Atlantic, one is inclined to wonder whether the cold dignity of the dear old place is not getting a little thawed out in the warm times in which we live.
The proceedings in the later days sound a little too suggestive of the Cowboys Convention of Montana, or the meeting of the Literary Philosophical Society of Dawson City, Yukon. Take in illustration the following report of the proceedings of one day some months ago, taken verbatim from the London Times and the London Morning Post or the Labor Herald — I forget which. At any rate, those who read the debates of the house will recognize it at once as genuine.
“The House of Commons resumed its session yesterday at three o’clock. The Prime Minister in rising from the Treasury Benches to present his bill for the introduction of Buckwheat into the Tanganyika district of Uganda, stated that he would like first to refer to the fact that some member of the House had just thrown a banana at the Speaker. He would ask members to realize that throwing bananas at the Speaker impeded the business of the House. He would go so far as to say that it was bad manners.
“At the word ‘manners’ the House broke into an uproar. Cries arose from the labor benches, ‘Manners! Yah! Manners!’
“Lady Luster at once leapt to her feet and said that there were members in the House whose manners were not fit for a stable.
“Joseph Dockside, M.P. for the Buckingham Palace district, asked if she meant him. Lady Luster called out that she did. The Speaker rose to a ruling against personal mention quoting a precedent under Henry VIII. But another banana hit him and he sat down.
“Mr. Dockside began to cry. He asked the House if it was fair to let an idle woman like Lady Luster tell him that he had no manners. He was only a poor man and had no schooling, and how could he even get a chance to pick up manners, even fit for a stable. Here he broke into sobs again while the labor benches resounded with the cries of ‘Shame!’ and the blowing of horns.
“Lady Luster then said that she had gone too far. She would take back the word stable. She meant ‘Garage.’
“The Speaker, quoting a precedent from Edward the Confessor, said that the debate might go on — a pineapple hitting him in the waistcoat just before, and as, he sat down.
“The Prime Minister then said that as quiet had been restored (loud cries of ‘Rah! Rah! Quiet!,’) he would resume his speech on the proposal of the government to subsidize the growing buckwheat — and, he would add, buckoats — in the Tanganyika district.
“At this point he was interrupted by Colonel MacAlpin MacFoozle, independent member for the East Riding of the West Hebrides. The Colonel wanted to know how the Prime Minister could speak of Tanganyika if he was fully aware of the condition of Scotland. Did he know of the present distress among the crofters? Was he aware of what was happening to the Scottish gillies, and the laddies and collies?
“Did he know that three more men had left the Hebrides? The Colonel, who spoke with violent passion, to the great delight of the House, said that he didn’t give a curse for buckwheat or for Tanganyika and that personally he could lick the whole cabinet.
“At this, loud shouts of ‘Attaboy! You’re the hot stuff,’ were mingled with cries of ‘Put him out!’ Lady Luster called out that if the Scots would quit drinking Scotch whiskey they would all save enough money to leave Scotland.
“For the moment, the transaction of public business was seriously threatened when Lord Pintop Daffodil rose and asked the Speaker’s leave to tell a funny story. Lord Pintop, who is rapidly gaining the reputation of being the third funniest member of the House, was greeted with encouraging laughter and applause.
“The Speaker having ruled that a funny story had been told under Queen Anne, Lord Pintop then related a story of how a Pullman car passenger was put off at Buffalo by the porter. The House, which is easily moved from anger to merriment and which enjoys nothing (except its lunch) so much as a good joke, was convulsed with laughter.
“The Speaker, in thanking the honorable member for the story, said that he believed that it was the same story as was told under Queen Anne.
“The Prime Minister then said he would resume his speech on buckwheat. He was about to do so when Mr. Ilyitch Halfoff, member for the Russian district of Westminster, said that he would like first to rise and present a resolution for the immediate introduction of communism into England. The House was in a turmoil in a minute.
“Cries of ‘Russia for ever!’ were mixed with the singing of the ‘Marseillaise’ and the countersinging of ‘Scots Whoo Hoo!’ It was said afterwards that the singing was the best ever heard in the House this month.
“At this point in the debate the yeoman usher of the Black Stick rushed into the House and called— ‘Hurry out, boys, there is a circus procession coming down Whitehall!’ The whole House rushed out in a body, only the speaker remaining behind for one minute to adjourn the session.”
New Light from New Minds
A Study in International Interviews
People who read the newspapers regularly must have noticed that the reported Interviews are getting to be much brighter and more interesting than they used to be. Till recently, when the press interviewed travellers, distinguished visitors and political emissaries, they talked to each of them about his own particular line of life and the things about which he was supposed to know something. The result was fearful dullness. A director of the Bank of England was interviewed about currency, an actor was interviewed about the stage and a bishop about religion. As a consequence every one of them got prosy and unintelligible.
Nowadays the thing is done in exactly the other way. Each distinguished visitor is asked questions about something that is outside of his own line of life. A vaudeville comedian gives his impressions of French politics and an English bishop gives his views of women’s skirts. The result is a freshness and a charm which lends a new attraction to our newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. Here are a few examples taken from the current press and drawn, as appears at once, indifferently from England and America.
Ball Player Visits St. Paul’s
London, Friday: Ed Lanigan, star outfielder and manager of the Tuscaloosa Base Ball Nine, passed through London this morning and expressed himself as delighted with it. After he had had a run round town, Ed gave his views, on some of the things he had seen, to a crowd of assembled admirers at the Hotel Cecil. “What did you think of St. Paul’s, Ed?” asked one of the boys. “It’s certainly big stuff,” said Ed, “and it gets me. Those old geysers certainly knew how to build. And I want to tell you boys that there’s something about that building that you don’t get everyday. I doubt if there are a dozen men in New York to-day who could duplicate it.”
“How does the political situation in England strike you,” he was next queried. “Fine!” answered the big man. “They’ve sure got a lot of taxes here. But then mind you there’s a lot of wealth too. Of course things are pretty bad, but you’ve got to remember they were bad before, and anyway they’re not so bad.”
Movie Star Sees Riviera
Menton, Monday: Gus Phinn, the well-known movie star who is said to command a salary of anywhere from half a million dollars, was a recent visitor at Menton. Gus is enthusiastic over the Mediterranean sea. “I want to tell you right now,” he said to a representative of the press, “that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Mediterranean.” “What did you specially notice about it, Gus?” asked the pressman. “Why, what gets me hardest is the colour of the water. Say, I don’t think you can beat that blue anywhere. You might try but you can’t do it.” “Do you think,” asked another of the group, “that the tone of English Social Life is deteriorating?” “No, I don’t,” Gus replied. “I think the tone is good. I think it A.1.”
“What about the relations of England and France, Gus?” was another question. “They’re all right,” the star answered. “We met a lot of French boys on the boat and certainly nicer boys you wouldn’t want to meet. Well, they’re gentlemen that’s what they are. The French are gentlemen.”
“What about Germans, Gus?” one of the reporters ventured.
“All right!” answered the movie man heartily. “We had a German at our table in the hotel and they’re all right. Mind you I think we were perfectly right in crushing them because they needed to be crushed. But they’re all right.”
Copper King Looks at Oxford
Oxford, Tuesday: E. J. Slagg, the multimillionaire owner of mines and president of Slagg Consolidated Copper, visited Oxford yesterday and was shown round the colleges. The big copper man whose quiet taciturnity and power of silence has made him the terror of the stock exchange, looked about him at everything with the same keen shrewdness with which he detects a vein of copper under a hundred feet of trap rock. Only now and then he darted a shrewd question or let fall a short comment.
“This place,” he said, “is old.” On the threshold of the Bodleian Library he paused a moment as if rapidly measuring the contents with his eye. “Mostly books?” he asked. The copper king also paused a moment before the monument erected to the memory of Latimer and Ridley. “What’s the idea?” he asked.
But — as I said up above this new and brilliant flood of light is not only turned on Europe. By a similar process it is let loose on the American continent too.
British Lord Sees Jersey Tugs
New York, Wednesday: Lord Tinklepin who arrived from England on the Aquitania yesterday was taken for a trip up and down the harbor in a fast tug. His lordship expressed himself as amazed at the commerce of New York. “I had no idea of it,” he said. Passing by one of the car ferries of the Erie Railway, Lord Tinklepin expressed the keenest interest.
“What the devil is that?” he asked. On being told what it was, the distinguished visitor who is well known for his interest in physical science, at once asked “Why doesn’t it upset?”
Lady Visitor Discusses American Banking
New York, Thursday: Lady Mary Messabout, President of the Women’s Federation for Universal Mutual Understanding, was shown round financial New York yesterday as the guest of the Bankers Association. Lady Mary expressed the greatest wonder at the Sub-Treasury of the United States. “Is it possible” she said, “that it’s full of money?” Lady Mary was questioned by representatives of the press as to her opinion of the American banking system. “It is really excellent,” she answered, “so little delay and such civility everywhere.” “Do you think,” — it was asked by a member of the press— “that the deflation of American currency would check the expansion of business.” “Oh, I hope not,” Lady Mary answered warmly, “surely it would never do that.”
French Baron Visits West
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Friday: The Baron de Vieux Chateau, who is visiting Saskatchewan with a view to seeing whether the richer parts of Canada would be suited for the poorer class of Frenchmen, was taken yesterday on a tour of inspection of the grain elevators of Saskatoon. “But they are marvellous!” the Baron said to a member of the press on his return to his hotel. “They seem to me absolutely — how shall I say it — enormous.” In further discussion the Baron said the whole system of distributing the wheat seemed to him excellent. When asked what his impression of the Farmer’s Cooperative movement was, the distinguished visitor again spoke with enthusiasm. “But your farmers,” he said, “they are wonderful! What courage! What tenacity! To have come here and stayed here! It is wonderful.”
An Advance Cable Service
International News a Month Ahead
It has recently become the habit to send out and circulate all sorts of special information in the form of “services.” The schools of commerce send out “financial services” with a forecast of business conditions six months before they happen and some times even six months before they don’t happen. The departments of agriculture send out crop reports even before the grain is planted. The meteorologists keep at least a fortnight ahead of the weather. Political forecasts are now ready for all the elections up to 1928. The hard winter that is going to begin about Xmas time has been definitely prophesied, in fact promised by the squirrels, the groundhogs and the makers of fur garments and by the West Indian Steamship agents.
It has occurred to me that a useful extension might be made to these “services” by adding an Advance European Cable Service. By this means all readers of newspapers, instead of having to read the cables day by day, could get them in a lump a month at a time. Anybody who has studied the newspapers of the last three or four years recognises at once that the cables run in a regular round, quite easy to prophesy. In the modest little attempt appended below, I have endeavoured to put in merely the ordinary routine of European public life for one month without prophesying anything of an exceptional or extreme character.
German Revolution Coming
Berlin, Monday 1: A monarchical wave is reported as having swept over Germany. The wildest excitement prevails. A hundred persons were trampled to death in Berlin the other day. The return of His Imperial Majesty the Kaiser is expected at any moment.
And Going
Berlin, Tuesday 2: A republican wave has swept over Germany in the place of the monarchical wave of yesterday. Another hundred people were trampled to death. William Hohenzollern is reported as still at Doorn in Holland.
And Has Gone
Berlin, Wednesday 3: Germany is quiet. Christmas shopping is beginning already. Everywhere there is cheerfulness and optimism. Nobody was trampled to death all day.
Frenzied Finance in France
Paris, Thursday 4: Following on the sensational statement of Monsieur Caillaux that France would pay her debts to the last penny, the wildest excitement prevailed on the Bourse. The franc which had been fairly steady all yesterday, rose to its feet, and staggered right across the street where it collapsed in a heap. Gloom prevails in financial circles.
Paris, Friday 5: Monsieur Caillaux has issued a supplementary statement to the effect that France will pay all her debts but it may take her a million years to do it. This assurance has restored universal confidence and Monsieur Caillaux is hailed everywhere as having redeemed the honor and credit of France. A tremendous ovation was given him today when eating a sandwich at the lunch counter. It is now said that Caillaux, who is recognised everywhere as the financial saviour of France, is working out a plan for wiping out the whole debt of France by borrowing it from England.
Home Life in England
London, Saturday 6: England is face to face with a coal strike of such magnitude that in twenty-four hours every fire in England will go out. If the transport workers and the public house keepers join the strike the whole industrial life of the nation will come to a full stop. Meantime the Archbishop of Canterbury says that if he can’t get a satchelful of nut coal tonight he must close the cathedral.
London, Monday 8: The coal strike was called off at five minutes before midnight — one of the closest shaves of a total collapse of England that has been reported in the last six months. Meantime with cloudless skies and bright sunshine the whole attention of the nation today is riveted on the champion football game between the Huddersfield and Hopton-under-Lime. The Archbishop of Canterbury will kick off the ball.
Italian Upheaval Heaving Up
Rome Tuesday 9: The Italian Fascisti have broken loose again. Yesterday a man climbed up to the top of the Duomo at Milan and waved a black shirt, shouting EVIVA ITALIA! The whole nation is in a ferment. Anything may happen.
