Chapter 11

Parliament has reassembled, and Mr. Punch has been moved to ask Why? Various reasons would no doubt be returned by various members. The Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to obtain a further Vote of Credit. The new National Party wish to justify their existence; and those incarnate notes of interrogation--Messrs. King, Hogge and Pemberton Billing--would like Parliament to be in permanent session in order that the world might have the daily benefit of their searching investigations. There has been a certain liveliness on the Hibernian front, but we hope that Mr. Asquith was justified in assuming that the Sinn Fein excesses were only an expression of the "rhetorical and contingent belligerency" always present in Ireland, and that in spite of them the Convention would make all things right. Meanwhile, the Sinn Feiners have refused to take part in it. And not a single Nationalist member has denounced them for their dereliction; indeed, Mr. T.M. Healy has even given them his blessing, for what it is worth. Of more immediate importance has been Mr. Bonar Law's announcement of the Government's intention to set up a new Air Ministry, and "to employ our machines over German towns so far as military needs render us free to take such action."

In the earlier stages of the War we looked on the moon as our friend. Now that inconstant orb has become our enemy, and the only German opera that we look forward to seeing is _Die Gothadämmerung_. A circular has been issued by the Feline Defence League appealing to owners of cats to bring them inside the house during air-raids. When they are left on the roof it would seem that their agility causes them to be mistaken for aerial torpedoes. We note that the practice of giving air-raid warnings by notice published in the following morning's papers has been abandoned only after the most exhaustive tests. The advocates of "darkness and composure" have not been very happy in their arguments, but they are at least preferable to the members of Parliament deservedly trounced by Mr. Bonar Law, who declared that if their craven squealings were typical he should despair of victory. Meanwhile, we have to congratulate our gallant French allies on their splendid bag of Zepps. But the space which our Press allots to air raids moves Mr. Punch to wonder and scorn. Our casualties from that source are never one-tenth so heavy as those in France on days when G.H.Q. reports "everything quiet on the Western front." Still worse is the temper of some of our society weeklies, which have set their faces like flint against any serious reference to the War, and go imperturbably along the old ante-bellum lines, "snapping" smart people at the races or in the Row, or reproducing the devastating beauty of a revue chorus, and this at a time when every day brings the tidings of irreparable loss to hundreds of families.

* * * * *

MISSING

"He was last seen going over the parapet into the German trenches."

What did you find after war's fierce alarms, When the kind earth gave you a resting-place, And comforting night gathered you in her arms, With light dew falling on your upturned face?

Did your heart beat, remembering what had been? Did you still hear around you, as you lay, The wings of airmen sweeping by unseen, The thunder of the guns at close of day?

All nature stoops to guard your lonely bed; Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath; You need no pall, so young and newly dead, Where the Lost Legion triumphs over death.

When with the morrow's dawn the bugle blew, For the first time it summoned you in vain, The Last Post does not sound for such as you, But God's Reveille wakens you again.

The discomforts of railway travelling do not diminish. But impatient passengers may find comfort in a maxim of R. L. Stevenson: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." And further solace is forthcoming in the fact that our enemies are even worse off than we are. Railway fares in Germany have been doubled; but it is doubtful if this transparent artifice will prevent the Kaiser from going about the place making speeches to his troops on all the fronts. Here all classes are united by the solidarity of inconvenience. And they all have different ways of meeting it. But we really think more care should be taken by the authorities to see that while waging war on the Continent they do not forget the defence of those at home. The fact that Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Horatio Bottomley were away in France at the same time looks like gross carelessness. In this context we may note the report that the Eskimos had not until quite recently heard of war, which seems to argue slackness on the part of the circulation manager of the _Daily Mail_.

_November, 1917_.

The best and the worst news comes from the outlying fronts. Allenby's triumphant advance is unchecked in Palestine. Gaza has fallen. The British are in Jaffa. Jerusalem is threatened. The German-Austrian drive which began at Caporetto has been stemmed, and the Italians, stiffened by a British army under General Plumer, are standing firm on the Piave. In Mesopotamia we deplore the death of the gallant Maude, a great general and a great gentleman, beloved by all ranks, whose career is an abiding answer to those who maintain that no good can come out of our public schools or the Staff training of regular officers. In Russia the Bolshevist _coup d'état_ has overthrown the Kerensky _règime_ and installed as dictator Lenin, a _déclassé_ aristocrat, always the most dangerous of revolutionaries. On the Western front the tide has flowed and ebbed. The Germans have yielded ground on the _Chemin des Dames_, the British have stormed Passchendaele Ridge, but at terrible cost, and General Byng's brilliant surprise attack and victory at Cambrai has been followed by the fierce reaction of ten days later. But perhaps the greatest sensation of the month has been Mr. Lloyd George's Paris speech, with its disquieting references to the situation on the Western front, and its announcement of the formation of the new Allied Council. The Premier's defence of, and, we may perhaps say, recomposition of his Paris oration before the House of Commons has appeased criticism without entirely convincing those who have been anxious to know how the Allied Council would work, and what would be the relations between the Council's military advisers and the existing General Staff of the countries concerned. But as Mr. Lloyd George confessed that he had deliberately made a "disagreeable speech" in Paris in order to get it talked about, the Press critics whom he rebuked will probably consider themselves absolved.

Parliament has for once repelled the gibe that it has ceased to represent the people in the tribute of praise paid by Lords and Commons to our sailors and soldiers and all the other gallant folk who are helping us to win the War. On the strength of this capacity for rising to the occasion one may pass over the many sittings at which a small minority of Pacificists and irrelevant inquisitors have dragged the House down to the depths of ineptitude or worse. In the debate on the Air Force in Committee, one member, if we count speeches and interruptions, addressed the House exactly one hundred times, and it is worthy of note that his last words were: "This is what you call muzzling the House of Commons." If we were to believe some critics, the British Navy is directed by a set of doddering old gentlemen who are afraid to let it go at the Germans, and cannot even safeguard it from attack. The truth, as expounded by the First Lord, Sir Eric Geddes, in his maiden speech, is quite different. Despite the Jeremiads of superannuated sailors and political longshoremen, the Admiralty is not going to Davy Jones's locker, but under its present chiefs, who have, with very few exceptions, seen service in this War, maintains and supplements its glorious record.

Save for an occasional game of "tip and run," as with the North Sea convoy, enemy vessels have disappeared on the surface of the ocean; and the long arm of the British Navy is now stretching down into the depths and up into the skies in successful pursuit of them. If the nation hardly realises what it owes to the men of the Fleet and their splendid comrades of the Auxiliary Services, it is because this work is done with such thoroughness and so little fuss, and, as Mr. Asquith put it, "in the twilight and not in the limelight."

The general sense of the community is now practically agreed that compulsory rationing must come, and the sooner the better. Lord Rhondda is still hopeful that John Bull will tighten his own belt and save him the trouble. But if we fail, the machinery for compulsion is all ready.

Reuter reports that a British prisoner has been sentenced to a year's imprisonment for calling the Germans "Huns." On the Western front Tommy usually calls them "Allymans," "Jerry," or "Fritz." But even if this prisoner did use the word he cannot be blamed. The choice was the Kaiser's when, as Attila's understudy, "Go forth," he said, "my sons. Go and behave exactly as the Huns."

Apropos of the Kaiser, it appears that a certain Herr Stegerwald, addressing a Berlin meeting, said: "We went to war at the side of the Kaiser, and the All-Highest will return from war with us." If we may be permitted to say anything, we expect he will be leading by at least a couple of lengths.

The versatility and inventive genius of the Prime Minister provoke mingled comment. An old Parliamentarian, when asked to what party Mr. Lloyd George now belonged, recently answered: "He used to be a Radical; he will some day be a Conservative; and at present he is the leader of the Improvisatories."

_December, 1917_.

It seems useless to attempt to cope with the staggering multiplicity of events crowded into the last few weeks. Jerusalem captured in this last crusade, which realises the dream of Coeur de Lion; Russia "down and out" as a result of the armistice and the Brest-Litovsk Conference; Germany's last colony conquered in East Africa; Lord Lansdowne's letter; the retirement of Lord Jellicoe; while in one single week Cuba has declared war on Austria, the Kaiser has threatened to make a Christmas peace offer, and Mr. Bernard Shaw has described himself as "a mere individual." We have traversed the whole gamut of sensation from the sublime and tragic to the ridiculous; and Armageddon, vulgarised by the vulgar repetition of the journalist, has redeemed its significance in the dispatches from our Palestine front. The simplicity and dignity of General Allenby's entry into the Syrian town--

Where on His grave with shining eyes The Syrian stars look down--

afford a happy contrast to the boastful pagentry of the Kaiser's visit in 1898. Meanwhile it has not yet been decided in Berlin what the Sultan of Turkey thinks of the capture of Jerusalem.

Where Russia is concerned Mr. Balfour wisely declines to be included among the prophets; all he knows is that she has not yet evolved a Government with which we can negotiate.

There _is_ a Government in Germany, but neither Government nor people afford excuse for the negotiations which Lord Lansdowne, in a fit of war-weariness, has advocated in his letter to the _Daily Telegraph_. His unfortunate intervention, playing into the hands of Pacificists and Pro-Boches, is all the more to be deplored in a public servant who has crowned a long, disinterested and distinguished career by an act of grievous disservice to his country. British grit will win, declares Sir William Robertson; but our elderly statesmen must refrain from dropping theirs into the machinery. Happily the Government are determined to give no more publicity to the letter than they can help. On the Vote of Credit for 550 millions the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been invited by Mr. Dillon to make a survey of the military situation, and has replied that all the relevant facts are known already. "The War is going on; the Government and the country intend it shall go on; and money is necessary to make it go on." That was a good answer to a member who has certainly done little to receive special consideration. Not only do we need money; we need men to supply the gaps caused by our withdrawal of troops to Italy and the constant wastage on all fronts.

Mr. Balfour, as we have seen, abstains from prophecy. Mr. Dillon, who, with other Nationalists, bitterly resents the decision of the Government to apply the rules of arithmetic to the redistribution of seats in their beloved country, has indulged in a terrifying forecast which ought to be placed on record. He has threatened the House with the possibility that at the next General Election he and his colleagues might be wiped out of existence.

Tommy is a very great man, but he is not a great linguist, though he always gets what he wants by the aid of signs or telepathy. Three years and some odd months have not changed his point of view, and now for Thomas to find himself in Italy is only to discover another lot of people who cannot understand or make themselves understood. "Alliances," as a correspondent from Italy puts it, "are things as wonderful to see as they are magnificent to read about. I do, however, regard with something approaching alarm the new language which will be evolved to put the lot of us on complete speaking terms."

Lord Rhondda, who listened from the Peers' gallery to the recent debate in the Commons on Food Control, has received a quantity of advice intended to help him in minding his p's and q's, particularly the latter. In China, we read in the _Daily Express_, a chicken can still be purchased for sixpence; intending purchasers should note, however, that at present the return fare to Shanghai brings the total cost to a figure a trifle in excess of the present London prices. More bread is being eaten than ever, according to the Food Controller: but it appears that the stuff is now eaten by itself instead of being spread thinly on butter, as in pre-war days. Bloaters have reached the unprecedented price of sixpence each. This is no more, as we have seen, than a chicken fetches in China, but it is enough to dispel the hope that bloaters, at any rate over the Christmas season, would remain within the reach of the upper classes. At a Guildford charity _fête_ the winner of a hurdle race has been awarded a new-laid egg. If he succeeds in winning it three years in succession it is to become his own property.

Christmas has come round again, and peace still seems a far-off thing. "What shall he have that killed the deer?" someone asks somebody else in _As You Like It_. But there is a better question than that, and it is this: "What shall they have that preserve the little dears?" And the answer is--honour and support. For there can be no doubt that in these critical times, when the life of the best and bravest and strongest is so cheap, no duty is more important than the cherishing of infancy, and the provision of seasonable joys to the youngest generation, gentle and simple. More than ever Mr. Punch welcomes the coming of Santa Klaus:

Thou who on earth was namèd Nicholas-- There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour, And pop down all the chimneys as you pass With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.

Not so thy singer, who believes in thee Because he has a young and foolish spirit; Because the simple faith that bards inherit Of happiness is still the master key, Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings To the dim beauty of imagined things.

_January, 1918_.

While avoiding as a rule the fashionable _rôle_ of prophet, Mr. Punch is occasionally tempted to indulge in prediction. The year 1918, in which France is greeting in increasing numbers the heirs of the Pilgrim Fathers, is going to be America's year. As for the Kaiser,

A Fatherland Poet was busy of late In making the Kaiser a new Hymn of Hate; Perhaps, ere its echoes have time to grow dim, The Huns may be learning a new Hate of Him.

In this prophetic strain Mr. Punch has been musing on the fortunes of the Hohenzollerns under a German Republic. Will the ex-Kaiser be appointed to the post of official Gatherer of Scraps of Paper, or start in business as a second-hand wardrobe dealer with a large assortment of slightly soiled uniforms? Or will he be ordered to ring a joy-bell on the anniversary of the inauguration of the German Republic?

These are attractive speculations, but a trifle previous, while hospital ships are still being torpedoed, U-boats are busy at Funchal, and the bonds of German influence and penetration are being forged anew at Brest-Litovsk. The latest news from that quarter seems to indicate that the Kaiser desires peace--at any rate for the duration of the War. And already there is a talk of a German counter-offensive on a colossal scale on the Western front. So that Mr. Punch's message for the New Year is couched in no spirit of premature jubilation, but rather appeals for fortitude and endurance.

How needful such an appeal is may be gathered from the proceedings at Westminster, less fit for the Mother than the Mummy of Parliaments, where "doleful questionists" exhume imaginary grievances or display their "nerve" by claiming the increase in pay recently granted to fighting men for conscientious objectors in the Non-Combatant Corps. The interest taken by one of this group in Army Dentistry inspires the wish that "the treatment of jaw-cases" mentioned by the Under-Secretary for War could be applied on the Parliamentary front. Head-hunting is in full swing. This classical sport, as practised in Borneo, involved the discharge of poisoned darts through a blow-pipe, and the House of Commons has not materially altered the method. In the attack of January 23 it is supposed that the Head of the Government was aimed at; but most of the shots went wide and hit the Head of our Army in France. Ministers have not distinguished themselves except by their capacity for "butting-in" and eating their words. Public opinion has been inflamed rather than enlightened by the discussions on unity of command, and the newspaper campaign directed against our War chiefs. Meanwhile, the Suffragists have triumphantly surmounted their last obstacle in the House of Lords, and Votes for Women is now an accomplished fact. But the Irish Andromeda still awaits her Perseus, gazing wanly at her various champions in Convention. The Ulsterman's plea for conscription in Ireland has been rejected after Sir Auckland Geddes had declared that it would be of no use as a solution of the present difficulty. He did not give his reasons, but they are believed to be Conventional. Mr. Barnes has described the Government as "living on the top of a veritable volcano," but, in spite of the context, the phrase must not be taken to refer to the Minister of Munitions, who, as everybody knows, cannot be sat upon.

Military experts tell us that this is a "Q" war, meaning thereby that the Quartermaster-General's department is the one that matters. Naval experts sometimes drop hints attaching another significance to that twisty letter. Harassed house-keepers are beginning to think that this is a "queue-war," and look to Lord Rhondda to end it. For the moment the elusive rabbit has scored a point against the Food Controller, but public confidence in his ability is not shaken. All classes are being drawn together by a communion of inconvenience. The sporting miner's wife can no longer afford dog biscuits: "Our dog's got to eat what we eats now." And the pathetic appeal of the smart fashionable for lump sugar, on the ground that her darling Fido cannot be expected to catch a spoonful of Demerara from the end of his nose, leaves the grocer cold. A dairyman charged with selling unsatisfactory milk has explained to the Bench that his cows were suffering from shell-shock. He himself is now suffering from shell-out-shock. At Ramsgate a shopkeeper has exhibited a notice in his window announcing that "better days are in store." What most people want is butter days.

The disquieting activities of the "giddy Gotha" involve drastic enforcement of the lighting orders, and the moon is still an object of suspicion. Pessimists and those critics who are never content unless each day brings a spectacular success, seem to have taken for their motto: "It's not what I mean, but what I say, that matters." But the moods of the non-combatant are truly chameleonic. Civilians summoned to the War Office pass from confidence to abasement, and from abasement to megalomania in the space of half an hour.

Turkey, it appears, has sent an urgent appeal to Berlin for funds. The disaster to the _Goeben_ can be endured, since the Sultan can now declare a foreshore claim, and do a little salvage profiteering; but Palestine is another matter. Since General Allenby's advance "running" expenses have swallowed up a formidable total. The War is teaching us many things, including geography. We are taking a lively interest in the Ukraine, and the newspapers daily add to our stock of interesting knowledge. Apropos of General Allenby's entry into Jerusalem, we learn that "the predominance of the tar brush in the streets added to the brightness of the scene," and in connection with his return to Cairo, that "the MacCabean Boy Scouts" took part in the reception--presumably the Cadet Corps of the Jordan Highlanders. But the most reassuring news comes from the enemy Press. "It is simply a miracle," says the _Cologne Gazette_, "that the Germans have so loyally stood by their leaders," and for once we are wholly in agreement with our German contemporary.

If Mr. Punch may exert his privilege of turning abruptly to grave from gay, the claim may be allowed on behalf of the youngest generation, already remembered in the chronicle of last month.

CHILDREN OF CONSOLATION

By the red road of storm and stress Their fathers' footsteps trod, They come, a cloud of witnesses, The messengers of God.

Cradled upon some radiant gleam, Like living hopes they lie, The rainbow beauty of a dream Against a stormy sky.

Before the tears of love were dried, Or anguish comfort knew, The gates of home were opened wide To let the pilgrims through.