For one day Parliament had a fas peaceful—indeed, very peaceful session, as the Labour members had gone to the provinces to celebrate, and even thd Glasgow contingent had retired for several days. No doubt the spring feeling is responsible to a certain extent for the toning down of what I may call the usual Parliament acerbity. We still have scenes in the House, but far fewer, and there is no question that although the Unionist Party pos-"sesses no imagination and. very lo oratorical ability, it does contain a number of people who go in for honest, industrious. effort, and if it makes any sort 6f deputa~ tion, this will be based on patient donkey work rather than on anything else. It is, too, managing to get some of its Bills forward, though everyone now realizes that there will be an Autumn session, Mr. Neville Chamberlain is making a very good Minister of Health, while Mr. Douglas Hogg, the Attorney General, is one of the great-eSt finds of any Parliament in recent times. Mr. Bonar Law has temporarily given up and gone for a holiday owing to a bad throat but otherwise he is quite well. In his absence Mr. Baldwin keeps things going pretty stolidly, and the Party undoubtedly turns up quite well at the House. There are! still efforts at Liberal re-union, but they never get much further than lip-service. Mr. Lloyd George vent down to Manchester last Saturday and! delivered a prp-reunion speech, though he had nothing of a very concrete nature on which the Party should re-unite, except what he called "'the love of liberty," whith was the watchword of Liberalism. Still, the dislike felt by the Liberal Wings for one another is nething compared to the dislike felt by the ''Wee Frees" for Labour, and there are constantly amusing ¢pisodes in the. House! which show the touchiness of both sides on the point.
THE COURSE OF OBSESSIONS, One feature off modern London life which all visitors notice is the extraordinary latitude given by the police to the ventilation of grievances. It probably is a characteristic of our national life, and it also is one of the safeguards which keep things there tranquil. London tis) stuffed with people with grievances—more than grievances, obsessions. Thus every day for weeks there are people wandering wp and down Whitehall bearing placards denounce ing the police or Ministers in unmeasured terms for some real or fancied injatstice which has been} done to them. They never hesitate say what they think, but the police never seem to mind. One man, for instance, who was apparently a small motor-cab proprietor, carried a placard outside Scotland Yard for weeks, denounce ing the police as robbers,, thieves and dwindlers. He is allowed to operate without anyone paying the least attention to him.
This is one type, but there ard many others. There is the case of to pear in London. He was ex-Ins; Syme, who is known! an Inspector who, years ago, was censured by the Authorities for what: they thought was some inaccuracy in his Station methods. They apparently proposed to reduce him to the rank of Sergeant, whereupon he cleared out and from that day to this, for over 20 years, has carried on a vendetta. Almost every week he speaks at a meeting in Trafalear Sauare; almost' every month he breaks windows in Whit— hall or Downing Street, and is taken back to gaol, where he hunger-strikes until he is let out on the ground that further detention would entail a fatal termination. ~He is a: man really of transparent honesty. He comes to the House of Commons frequently, where the police handle him very considerately, because they believe that he is the victim of an obsession, The-authorities have offered to replace him not as Station Superintendent which he used to be but in a lower grade, with the assurance that they will gradually work him up to his old position as early as possible. He will not accept it. Either he goes back as the Station. Superintendent, or he stays out. He is an old and battered man now, more or less living, I suppose, in penury, but he represents the individual who loses sight of his real aim and object by his introspection on a grievance which is more or less imaginary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.