The English Parliament for a long time commanded the respect
of foreigners. I am speaking not alone of its architecture, but also of its customs and ways. In the English Parliament, there is neither the rough drill of the Reichstag nor the cheap picturesqueness of the Chambre des D5cart.Ss : the House is rather a club for sporting business-men or for business sportsmen. The members compete with one another exquisitely in politeness. After dinner the tempo of speeches is slowed down—the phlegm is somehow mixed up with the laws of digestion. Towards five o'clock the House empties : tea is served on the veranda. Everywhere one feels that something in the nature of family relationship exists and the composi- tion of the Parliament confirms it. Here is the son of MacDonald, there is Lloyd George's daughter. Parties are not parties only, but kindreds. The family basis persists. Lord Lardomere, of the House of Lords, dies, and his vacant place is filled by the Honourable Viscount Young-Porker from the House of Commons. Such is the guild nature of the establishment. In the House one sits without ceremony, lounging and throwing one's leg somewhere higher than the head. In my presence one of the Tories quite coolly put his feet on the table : it is not merely a table, but a special table of some importance, for besides the honourable members' feet there lay on the table a greatly venerated article, the Speaker's mace. It is worth while saying something about this stick. Every day there is a Speaker's procession to which sight-seers daily gather as to a free performance. Serious people carry that stick in the procession. Following it is a very grave jester with a wig, which is getting a little bare on the crown. Lookers on arc not forced to make the sign of the Cross. Those who desire may even smile. The mace remains, however, sacred. Recently the whole of England shuddered at an unheard-of piece of sacrilege. A member of the extreme left, roused to indignation by the persecu- tion of Hindus and by the hypocrisy of the party in power, seized the mace and tried to carry it from the House. All were dumbfounded. The blasphemer explained that, by carrying out the mace, he wished to interrupt the sitting because, it is said, the Parliament is not a Parliament without the stick. Evidently he too believed in the magic properties of the said article.
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