The Irish standard., 1911-04-01


fury of the veto fight.
The only weakness of the ministry
at the present moment is the number
of it's members on the sick list This
necessitates another shuffling of the
cards. Secretary Hal
danes removal to the house of peers
was the first step in this reconstruc-
tion, but others are soon expected.
Lloyd-George still is absent, the
malady in his throat proving obstin-
ate, and the bad weather of the last
few days bringing back the old symp-
toms, but all OF the reports that he
was struck down by a malignant dis
ease are false. His absence weakens
the ministry and especially as the
debates OF the last two weeks have
been mainly on his budget but the
ministry ploughs it's way along with
the subordinates and whenever the
obstruction becomes too palpable, the
closure is Immediately applied.
The situation in Ireland is quite
The annual subscrip-
ton for the parliamentary party has
just started with a big boom, largely
helped by gigantic gatherings in ev-
cry English and Scotch town during
the st. Patrick's day celebrations.
Sir John Simon +o Fore
The trying scenes with which the
great fight for democracy in England
and self-government in Ireland have
already started, have brought to the
front many personalities in the house
of commons and have made great ma
tional figures of men who but a. few
weeks ago, were almost unknown out
side the narrow circles of their pro-
fession or their intimate friends. And
first among these regulations, created
almost in the twinkling of an eye,
must be placed Sir John Simon, the
new and young solicitor general. The
absence OF Lloyd-George gave Sir
John Simon his chance. The intri-
cacies of budget bill are puzzle
to the keenest lay mind even to many
welltrained legal minds. The Ian
guage Of all acts of parliament is
knotty obscure. redundant, and to me
it is always almost as undecipherable
as the words of an unknown tongue
in unknown letters. What are appar-
emily complexities, contradictions,
provisos within provisOs, parentheses
within parentlleses making the ordi-
nary mind reel, and seem to present
to even the most trained and the most
legal mind, a labyrinth through which
it is impossible to guide the general
mind. And here was a tall, thin, and
very tranquil and very pleasant spok-
en- young man, speaking the language
OF ordinary life, suddenly making the
whole abyssmal darkness into gleam-
ing light, and proving that what you
thought absolute gibberish was mere
ly the legal expression of the plain
simple facts of every day life.
This was the great achievement of
Sir John Simon during the days of
the last week when the budget was
under discussion. Mr. Balfour finds
legal phraseology unintelligible and
even his extraordinary subtle and me-
taphysical mind finds in acts of par
lament and clauses of bills, problems
of Interpretation more difficult than
those OF even Schopenhauer or Hegel.
And yet, after John Simon had given
one of these little expositions of his
one most gnarled clause of the budget
bill, MT. Balfour got up to make the
generous acknowledgment that he
had never heard a more lucid exposi-
ton in his parliamentary life and that
so far as he could grasp a legal prob
lem, he ws quite satisfied. This was
high testimony to the skill and the
success of the solicitor general, but
there was testimony higher, and more
instructive than even this generous
recognition by the political foe. You
can get word of praise from man !;
you can get attention from friendly
opponent; you can succeed in cap
turing an individual here and there !;
but there is one thing you cannot do
with an assembly of men, and that is
to get their undivided, respectful and
even friendly attention, unless by
the sheer force of dominating intel
lect. ..
And this is what Sir John Simon
succeeded in doing. When he Wac
in charge of the budget bill the whole
atmosphere and temper of the house
of commons was transformed. Busi
ness proceeded not only rapidly but
in perfect good humor. Amendments
disappeared with rapidity, clause was
added to clause as it nothing were