of the immense congregation which attended his funeral mass in Westminster Cathedral two days after his death.

Soon afterwards, I received a letter from Mr. Stephen Gwynn, an Irish Nationalist M.P., asking me for the date at which Mr. Redmond had joined the House of Commons as a clerk (I think it was in 1878), and he added: "Is there any record of another man whose life was so completely spent in the service of the House of Commons, I wonder?" He was kind enough to add the following passage, which I hope I may be forgiven for recording: Of course you know that Redmond, the best possible judge, always said that no one in his experience had come near your standard of excellence. I think it was due to his sense of what you had been able to do for the House of Commons that he had certainly before his mind the idea of serving as Speaker in an Irish Parliament. This is only an inference from things that he said in the Convention—but I am sure it is a sound one."

The day on which the big German advance began against the Western front, the House rose for the Easter recess, and my wife and I took the opportunity of a few days' respite to pay what had now become my annual visit to Bath as a prophylactic against my old enemy the gout. Horace Walpole, who was a great sufferer from this complaint, as readers of his letters know, used to say that the gout was a remedy and not a disease. It may be so, but, as an old sufferer, I prefer Bath, and I have found periodical visits thither the best preventive against the ravages of the disease or the employment of the "remedy."

Just before our visit we were honoured with an invitation to luncheon en petit comité with Their

Majesties the King and Queen, the only others present being the Prince of Wales, just back from the front, and Prince Henry. The war and politics formed naturally the chief subjects of our discussion, and I noticed that the severe sumptuary restrictions, which were then applicable to all, were rigorously enforced at the Royal table. In the words of Horace, they equally affected

"Pauperum tabernas Regumque turres."

At Bath we found our old acquaintance Mr. Frederick Harrison on the rampage. From having been an extreme democrat, almost a tribune of the people, he had now become a severe despot. After listening together to a pianoforte recital by Mark Hambourg, he sent me the following scheme which he entitled “The Ideal Government, by a Revolutionary Conservative— inspired by Mark Hambourg's 'Tarantula.' Easter Eve 1918":

The House House of Commons votes on account £000,000,000,000.

The King prorogues Parliament for duration of the

war.

Committee of Public Safety installed.

Its decrees to be Orders under D.O.R.A.

President, with powers of a Prime Minister: the Speaker.

War: Sir W. Robertson.

Navy: Lord Jellicoe.

Ireland: Sir E. Carson. Military Service Act extended to Ireland.

Attorney-General: D. Ll. George

to address meet

Solicitor-General: H. H. Asquith ings and rouse the (country.

Air: Lord Northcliffe.

Works: Lords Cowdray and Pirrie.

Law Courts, Universities, Schools above elementary: Closed during the war.

No newspapers or public prints to issue telegrams nor to comment on public affairs.

Official telegrams to be posted three times daily at door of every P.O.

Both telegrams and comments to be settled by Colonel * Repington.

I do not know how far he was in earnest in all his proposals, but they give a fairly accurate representation of the views he then held, and however impossible his suggestions and schemes, it was refreshing to see and hear a man of so great an age as he had then reached so full of vigour and initiative.

We also had the pleasure of meeting M. Raemaekers, the celebrated Dutch cartoonist, upon whose head the Germans had set a price. His studio was full of many cartoons, designed in a most caustic not to say brutal fashion, and included his most recent drawing representing the bombardment by a long-range German gun of a church in Paris during the three-hour service on Good Friday, when no less than seventy of the congregation were killed and ninety wounded.

Lord Breadalbane, like myself a regular visitor to Bath, was also there, and as he was a brother Commissioner of the Caledonian Canal, we had several talks about that waterway. It had been taken over from us by the Admiralty and was being then used for some secret naval purposes, of which we were not informed; but as the matter had been carried through in a hurry, the conditions upon which it had been commandeered

and the arrangements for the payment of our staff and for the substitution of a monetary grant in lieu of the dues, had been left rather vague and required a good deal of unravelling before they were finally adjusted.

CHAPTER XXVIII

1918 (contd.)

Compulsory Service in Ireland-The Maurice Debate-Service at St. Margaret's Jesse Collings-The Armistice Dissolution-President Wilson-Sinn Fein and the House of Commons.

Immediately on my return to town from Bath, I was called into consultation with Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Bonar Law as to expediting the passage of the Military Service Bill through the House. The introduction of this Bill, which provided for raising the age for military service to fifty, and for bringing Ireland within the purview of the compulsory service enactments, coincided with the worst period of the war, when the Germans were within a few miles of Amiens and the danger of the main line of communication being cut was imminent. The Bill was stoutly and somewhat riotously resisted by the Nationalists, who, when Sir Auckland Geddes, the Director of National Service, rose to reply for the Government, loudly called for Mr. Duke, the Irish Secretary, and it was only after using all the conciliatory and persuasive powers at my command that I could obtain a hearing for the former Minister. The Bill passed with less difficulty than I had anticipated, for I had warned the Prime Minister and Mr. Bonar Law of the hornets' nest which they were stirring. They were fully aware of the hostility with which it would be met, but were determined. As is well known, the sections of the Act and of former Acts applying compulsory service to Ireland were, however,