The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-07-26
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
Bart Kennedy Hears Debate on Bimet-
aiIIsm.
(SpcciaI Corrospondence.I

act the affairs OF a great nation. There
was nothing imposing or striking about it.
It didn't at ali III in with my idea Of the
might and power Of England, and it Ger
tainly gave not "A hint Of her arrogance and
spirit of domincerinG. II had a modest,
mediocre and, above all. q comfortable air.
But despite its air Of comfort one felt
that IL must be an intensely respectable
place. II the speaker had raised his voice
In the leading of OF hymn, 1 wOuldn' I
have been a bit surprised. 1t would have
accorded well with the tone OF the sur
roundings. How n general fist fight could
have occurred I'm this bourgeois elysium is
an awful riddle, tho solving OF which Is
beyond me.
On the floor of the house an old gentle
man was speaking. His whiskers were
very white his face was very red and his
head was bald. His hat, which had what
appeared TO be n mass of notes and refer
ences upon the top Of II, lay on the bench
quite close to him. Nearly all the mem
bers, by the way, were wearing their hats,
but this took not little away from the
responsibility Of the whole affair. You
felt that it was right for them TO do so,
more especially as they wore tall hats Of
the cminently proper order.
What the old gentleman was talking
about couldn't at first tell, because of his
rather peculiar delivery. He had the high
toned la-di-da English method Of produc-
ing his voice, that method which snobbish
Americans try to initiate, with little sue
cess, however. "Er-er-Mistaw Speakaw
-cr-cr," nc would repeat with variations
two or three times, and then he would
ramble on through long, long sentence
80 laden with qualifying clauses that when
he got TO the end of il you found that he
had said, or rather asserted, nothing. Aft
81 =, vTs ,y,A I
found that his meaning was to denounce
the principle OF bimetallisIn, but he had
such a way Of qualifying the assertions he
would make that in reality he wasn't de
nouncing IL at all. He was only saying
nothing in a courteous way.
Tho gentlemen around him, who were
listening TO his speech in various postures
uf dignified ease, would occasionally re
mark, "Hear, hearP' and "Ow-owl''
Now and then, however, one of them
would get up and go out when the old
gentleman's way of putting it began to
pail too heavily. But he took no notice Of
this inappreciation, but rambled along Sc
renely, saying nothing either in general
or particular upon the principle of bimetal-
lism.
noticed that the audience, or rather
the spectators, followed what was being
said with close attention. Evidently they
saw much more in it than did, or it may
have been that feeling of awe was upon
them, for Englishmen greatly respect their
government and the machinery thereof;
also they kept up n running comment in a
low whisper. 1 turned round TO look at
and study them. They were all we'll
dressed. In the main they We're English
men belonging to different parts Of the
country who had come to London to stay
but short while. The members OF parlia-
ment who represented the constituencies
to which they belonged had procured them
tickets Of admission into the strangers
gallery.
After the old gentleman sat down an
other member who was also horid of face,
but much younger, got up, took Off his
hat and politely intimated to the speaker
that the honorable member for-I forget
the name of the place-didn't know quite
as much concerning the subject he was
talking of as he might have done. Men
tally agreed with him. In a general way
ne sailed into the old gentleman, but he
was so courteous and suave about it that
you felt that it wasn't much OF n sailing
in after all.
My sympathies went out TO the poor
speaker when 1 reflected upon the fact that
ne didn't have the privilege Of getting up
and going out when the elOquence OF his
brother parliamentarians became too try
ing. There he sat listening, his head and
shoulders covered with long flowing wig.
Upon his face was an expression Of weary
pain. He looked as tired of the world and
it's vanities as the keeper of a theater box
office. In the vestibule of the house n fine
looking III dropping policeman told me
that he gets a salary of 25, 900 year. 1t
is too little for the job, 1 think. He
should get at least double the amount.
After awhile another member got up and
began to explain to the rest what an aw
fully bad thing it would be for the English
working classes If the bimetallio standard
were adopted. He said some rather hard
things about the way that the western
states of America had tried to flood the
money market OF the world with silver
and he summed up depreciatively of that
country in general, but he did it In such a
polite way-the usual parliamentary way
that couldn't take offense.
/ turned to spoliceman who was stand
ing close by and asked him who he was.
In an nwed whisper he told me that he
was Sir Somebody couldn't quite catch
who. He talked a great deal about the
workingman, did this sir, " and the bene-
fits that would accrue to him by the gov
ernment's adherence to the monometallio
standard He looked like retired brewer
who had attained to the possession OF -
Walton, but, to tell the truth, his speech
was the most logical and convincing one of
the whole lot. L don't say that what he
said came within mile of the cause OF the
financial trouble that at present exists in
the world-far from it-but his way OF
talking round and at the thing was rather
neat and forceful
/ noticed that all these gentlemen steercd
very far away from the great truth that Ia
Dor and labor alone has the power to pro
duce wealth. Practically they reasoned
from the standpoint that money itself, OF
some kind or another, has the power to
produce wealth. Their debate really was
as To whether single or double stand
ard OF money was the better for the cor
railing of the wealth of the world by Eng
land It didn't seem TO occur to them
that the great fiscal system of the world Is
in reality chain that is no stronger than
its weakest link, and that to some of the
Seenest and most comprehensive minds of
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