Punch (74.1878)

278

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[Juke 22, 187b.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Thursday, June 13 [Commons only).—The House reassembled
after Whitsuntide, under the leadership of Sir Stafford Northcote,
left in charge of the Foreign Office as well as the Exchequer.

The country is obliged to Mr. Rylands for moving a Resolution,
seconded by Mr. E. Jenkins, to the effect that all future Treaties
involving guarantees or pecuniary subsidies, should be submitted to
both Houses of Parliament before ratification. For this proposal
occasioned Mr. Gladstone himself, as a Statesman and ex-Premier,
to point out that it would be impracticable, in a speech which con-
tained the very welcome remark that " They had now arrived at a
stage of the Eastern Question at which it was not unreasonable to
hope that much of the difference between the Members of the Oppo-
sition and the supporters of the Government had disappeared."
For this improved situation how much are we not indebted to the
Right Honourable Gentleman's own exertions ?

Of course, a Resolution for superseding the Foreign Secretary by
the Legislature was negatived without a division.

Talk on the Controller and Auditor-General's Report ensued.

Sir A. Gordon complained that money voted to buy land for a
" tactical station" in Lancashire, had been applied to the purchase

of commons at Aldershott. Colonel Stanley replied that the tactical
station was not to be had. The Vote could not be carried out in
letter, but, under his predecessor, it had been in spirit. Replying
to a suggestion from Mr. Hatter for the maintenance of the
Militia, in due strength, he promised to bear in mind the recom-
mendation of the Militia Committee of last year, and, by the bye,
took occasion to say that when the Militia Reserves were lately
called up, only five per cent, of the men had failed to report them-
selves at head-quarters. A creditably low per-centage.

Then came Committee of Supply on Army Estimates. Votes
in detail concisely and quietly discussed until the introduction
of the Irish element by Mr. O'Cdert, who objected to the Vo-
lunteer Corps Vote on the ground that Volunteer Corps were
not allowed in Ireland. "Whereas it was notorious that "when
English recruits lay down in the trenches of the Crimea and declined
to go forward, they had to be driven into the performance of their
duty by Irish sergeants." Sir W. Barttelot thought it necessary
to notice this reasoning, and in so doing to remind the patriotic
Member for Wexford that "he forgot that some of those who sat
near him maintained that if Irishmen were called out in the interests