Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, May 21, 1919Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, May 21, 1919
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
The debate on Mr. HARTSHORN'S motion regarding the state of Ireland
was unique of its kind in that not a single Member representing an
Irish constituency took the floor; but in spite of that it produced
more heat than light. Both the mover and the seconder (Mr. SEXTON)
were rich in denunciation of the present Government of Ireland,
but poverty-stricken in suggestions for its improvement. Lord HENRY
BENTINCK seized the opportunity to make final recantation of his
Unionist principles, but in default of more practical proposals was
reduced to imploring the people of Ulster "to show some spirit of
compromise;" and Lord HUGH CECIL in a despairing moment declared that
he would sooner see three-fourths of Ireland independent than the
whole of it presented with a form of Home Rule which no Irishman
desired. After that one appreciated Sir KEITH ERASER'S remark, that
during four years' soldiering in Ireland he had only met one man who
understood the Irish Question, and he was an Englishman who had only
been there a week!
_Thursday, May 15th_.--The intelligent foreigner who should try to
disentangle the causes of Egyptian unrest from the speeches delivered
in both Houses this afternoon will be rather puzzled. From Captain
WEDGWOOD BENN in the Commons he would learn that it was due to the
ineptitude of the British Administration, the ill-treatment of the
natives by the Army of Occupation, and in particular the unsympathetic
attitude adopted by Lord CURZON towards the Nationalist leaders,
one of whom, according to Captain BENN, "held in Egypt a position
comparable with that of Mr. Speaker here." Across the corridor at the
very same moment Lord CURZON was asserting that Egypt was enjoying
extraordinary material prosperity, that the British soldiery had
shown wonderful restraint in very trying circumstances and that the
Government had not the least desire to repress Egyptian individuality
(when not too exuberant, of course) or deny to natives an
ever-increasing share in the administration of their country. They
would have been quite ready to listen to ZAGHLUL and his friends if
they had not begun by demanding the complete disappearance of British
rule. The intelligent foreigner will probably come to the conclusion
that Egypt is very like Ireland--except that it has no Ulster.
General SEELY gave a fairly plausible explanation of the apparently
wanton destruction of new aeroplanes that is going on at Farnborough
and elsewhere. Owing to the rapid progress in aviation they were
already obsolete for military purposes before they were delivered.
They are quite unsuitable for civilian use, and are therefore being
"reduced to produce"--a euphemism for "scrapped."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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