On Tuesday, when the German mobilisation over against the eastern frontier of Belgium was well forward, and when there remained no longer any doubt that the army gathering there would traverse that State, Sir William Harcourt rose in his place, every eye in the House centred on him, and with portentous earnestness of aspect and manner, demanded that the Leader of the House should name an early day for a debate on ‘the grave international questions and eventualities connected with the imminent violation of the neutrality of Belgium, and the attitude of the ministry in relation to those questions and eventualities.’ Sir William reseated himself with, indeed, a brow of care and gravity, as beseemed a statesman dealing with a momentous crisis; but the lower section of his expressive visage mantled with a conscious complacency which seemed to indicate a conviction that he had propounded something in the nature of a ‘settler’ for this apparently inertest of Governments. ‘Take to-morrow, if you like,’ drawled the Leader of the House without rising, and then he actually and visibly yawned. The smirk faded out of Sir William’s face at the roar of laughter, irrepressible on the part of the Liberals and Conservatives alike, which followed Mr. Balfour’s drawl and yawn.
A SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS—SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT QUESTIONS THE GOVERNMENT. ]
The Opposition papers have vied in vituperation of Mr. Balfour’s _insouciance_, which they described as ‘insolence,’ ‘impertinence,’ and ‘insult.’ One provincial journal congratulates Sir William Harcourt on his self-restraint in having refrained from pulling Mr. Balfour’s nose, and another, with startling novelty, compares the latter to Nero fiddling while Rome was burning. But yesterday’s scene in the House has shown, at least, that the Government, though composed, has not been indifferent. It must have been galling to many of the hot-brained to have observed that when in the afternoon Mr. Balfour lounged into the crowded House, he showed no symptoms of being crushed, or even perturbed, by this avalanche of invective. In opening the debate, the ordinarily bland and gentle Sir William Harcourt displayed a truculent aggressiveness which startled all listeners, so foreign was it to his previously disclosed nature. When he had finished, and the dust had settled a little, Mr. Balfour slowly rose. He spoke as follows: