_Tuesday, May 13th_.--The Lords defeated the Government by inserting in the Ministry of Health Bill a provision that the new Minister should have only one Parliamentary Secretary. In vain Lord SANDHURST protested that the amendment would tie the PRIME MINISTER'S hands. Lord MIDLETON was delighted to think that it would. Lord CREWE declared that the creation of minor Ministers was becoming a disease (possibly the Ministry of Health will include it among "notifiable" epidemics?). Lord BLEDISLOE quoted the old tag about big fleas and little fleas. But after all there must be some check to the inveterate tendency to somnolence in the public offices.
When the Ways and Communications Bill was before the Commons the Minister-Designate buttressed his case with the alarming statement that there would be a deficit of one hundred millions this year on the working of the railways. Members were therefore surprised to find in the Budget that only sixty millions was provided to meet it. Even in these days a discrepancy of forty millions does not pass entirely unnoticed. When taxed with it, Mr. CHAMBERLAIN said he thought it was due to Government traffic not having been allowed for in the original calculation, but advised his questioner to ask Sir ERIC GEDDES to explain. For some reason--can it be the formidable appearance of the GEDDES chin?--Sir JOSEPH WALTON did not seem greatly pleased at the prospect.
Like many another Chief Secretary before him, Mr. IAN MACPHERSON, who reappeared in the House after a long absence in Ireland, had to figure with a scourge in one hand and an olive branch in the other. At Question-time he was the stern upholder of law and order, obliged within the last few days to suspend a seditious newspaper and to surround the Dublin Mansion House with soldiers. A few moments later he was moving the Second Reading of a most generous Housing Bill, under which Irish Corporations will be enabled to build thousands of dwellings largely at the expense of the general taxpayer.
In his warm welcome to the measure Sir EDWARD CARSON revealed a side of his character not often seen, except by his personal friends. He was so sympathetic to the needs of the Irish working-classes, so eloquent upon the benefits to health, sobriety and contentment that good houses would secure, and so insistent upon the necessity of making the new dwellings beautiful as well as useful, that Mr. DEVLIN could do little more than say "ditto to Mr. BURKE."