Punch (72.1877)

May 19, 1877.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

219

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

K 0 U PoS 9 F
DEL1N e IVY.

VMS

b^etobia prceterita est. The Boerish Republic is no more ! So'Lobd
Cabnabvon {Lords, Monday, May 7) reads off the wires. Shep-
stone hascut the knot, not by edge of sword, but by a short, sharp,
and decisive instrument of Incorporation of the TXansvaal with
British South Africa. Let us hope we have not taken the territory
of the Boer at a Trans-vaaluation. But there seems to have been
nothing else for it.

" "Who dreamed of pirates loose—
Though none were there ?
Would have us cook their goose ?

ltobin Adair

Loed "Waveney, who seems to have piracy on the brain, moved
an _Address praying the Queen to invite the co-operation of her
allies to maintain the security of commerce in the Mediterranean,
which, so far as Loed Deeby knows, is in no way threatened. As
if we hadn't scares enough loose already !

{Commons.)—The fullest House of the Session. Strangers as
thick as thieves, or bees at swarming-time, in the Speaker's
gallery. A ballot among some four hundred for some eighty places—
worse.than claimants on the Treasury in Coalition-time. Peers in
every place that Peers could be poked into—as in the Ministry.
Members wherever Members could sit or stand. Both galleries
brimming over ; and M.P.'s seated on the steps below the gangway,
i .{Y . ti * -^n overflow, in fact, of uninformed in- and out-siders to see the

Opposition Aetseon worried by his own pack ; of those who were be-
hind the scenes, to see W. E. G,, turned tactician, split his differences
and his Resolutions, in order to re-cement Her Majesty's Opposition.
Let Punch remind the readers of the substance of these four now famous Resolutions. The first censured the Porte for not punishing
the authors of the Bulgarian atrocities at Loed Debby's bidding. The second declared that Turkey had forfeited all claims on the moral and
material support of England, until she mended her ways. The third pledged us to the cause of self-government in the Turkish provinces.
The fourth committed us to the principle of a European concert to enforce Europe's will on Turkey, by coercion, if need be.

Rather than support the two latter, Sib John Lubbock had given notice to extinguish all four under " the previous question." The
debate on this would have brought into strong relief the antagonism between the more advanced Liberals of the Opposition, who were pre-
pared to support all four Resolutions, and the more moderate majority, who would have voted with Sib John, and so shelved the Resolu-
tions, without directly negativing them. One question between the sections of Opposition in the House, and out of it, hangs on the policy
of coercion. Another, and more important at this moment, lies between a policy of strict neutrality and one of, or at least tending to, war.

Punch has always kept one line on the coercion question. Unless England meant to join in coercing Turkey into compliance with the
conclusions of a Conference, she should never have taken part in one that, without coercion, was sure to end in smoke. Let those who
may wish to consult our record, turn back to the Cartoon, in which, immediately on the conclusion of the Conference, Punch put to
the British Lion the crucial question, " If you didn't mean to back up Loed Salisbury, why did you send him ? "

From the moment that Her Majesty's Government proclaimed their policy of non-coercion, the way was clear for Her Majesty's
Opposition to have proclaimed theirs of coercion, if they dared. They did not dare. Their ranks were from that moment divided into a
more cautious wing, under Lobd Habtington, and a more thorough-going and daring wing, under Ms. Gladstone and the Duke op Aegyll.

The spectacle which the Majority promised themselves on Monday was the internecine combat of these two wings—the duel of the
Hartingtonatii and the Gladstoneatii. They were disappointed. Mb. Gladstone, rather than give the House this gladiatorial exhi-
bition, consented to throw over the third and fourth Resolutions, on which the wings were at odds, and to modify Resolutions one and