"Coercion Carson."
of view of the dispassionate observer, that the junior member for Dublin University has not, in several speeches made since Parliament met, justified expectation. He is not as yet able to shake off the manner learned through a long course of Crown prosecutions in Ireland. When he is discussing the speech or action of an hon. or right hon. gentleman opposite, he always treats him as if he had found him in the dock, and as if the brief before him hinted at unutterable crimes brought home to him by the inquiry and testimony of members of the Irish Constabulary. The manner is so natural and ingrained that there is doubt whether it will ever be overcome or even modified. This is a pity, for it is simply professional. Nevertheless—indeed, therefore—it will never do in the House of Commons.
MR. MORTON—NOT ALPHEUS CLEOPHAS. On the Liberal side the name of Mr. E. C. J. Morton is the only one that occurs to the mind in search of promise among new members. The matter of his speech is admirable, its arrangement lucid, its argument persuasive. Success is marred by lack of grace in delivery, accentuated by Mr. Morton's insistence on addressing the House from the corner seat of the front bench below the gangway. It is apparently a small matter, but he would, for immediate effect, do twice as well if he spoke from a back bench. The position would have the double effect of making less obtrusive the appalling collection of papers which seem indispensable to his addresses, and would relieve a sensitive audience from the distraction of ungainly movements as, inflamed by his own eloquence, he, with shuffling feet, restlessly moves up and down and half way round.
Mr. Galloway Weir.
MR. WEIR. Wales has brought no new member of note into the Parliamentary field, nor is there anything new from Ireland. Scotland, with the dry humour for which it was ever famous, has contributed Mr. Weir and Dr. Macgregor. It would be impossible for the ordinary student of Parliamentary reports to understand why these two gentlemen should make the House roar with laughter. It is not easy by any pen description to convey the secret. It lies in subtle eccentricities of manner, voice, attitude, and gesture. Mr. Weir, his useful legislative career unhappily handicapped by indisposition, has never taken part in ordered debate. He has found a wide and fruitful field of labour in addressing questions to Ministers. They do not often rise nearer to heights of Imperial interest than is found in the state of the drains at Pitlochrie, the tardy arrival of a train on the Highland Railway, or the postponement by forty minutes of a telegram addressed to a fishmonger who thought it would reach Lochaber no more.
If Mr. Weir's mission, when he rises with two questions in hand, were to announce that the Russians are bivouacked on the Pamirs, or that the Tricolour flag flaunts over Bangkok, his manner could not be more impressive.
It is testimony to the richness of the soil that he has grafted upon it two distinct manners. When he first delighted the House by appearing at question time, he was wont
