If Hitler Comes Read Online Free PDF Page A

that Naker, say, might have been up to.
    To be riding in a bus along Whitehall, past the Cenotaph, and to be bound for yet another important debate in the cramped Press gallery of that tawdry, stuffy, and majestic Chamber had a steadying effect upon my nerves. Big Ben struck two, in the tones that meant “heart of Empire” to half the world. A good crowd had gathered, and there was some excitement in Parliament Square. It was caused by one of those tiresome Greyshirt processions, which the police were dispersing. Demonstrations of any kind, it will be remembered, were forbidden within half a mile of the High Court of Parliament.
    Among my papers is Hansard for the Thirteenth of March. I have often glanced through it since the day I bought it, and it has assumed in my mind the proportions of a classic tragedy.
    “The House met at a quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. Speaker in the Chair.” The formula calls to mind that dignified little procession, perhaps the most moving of all the State ceremonial of England, when, preceded by the Serjeant-at -Arms with his mace, the bewigged Speaker walked through the lobbies and the House to his chair. Everyone would bow, and it was an expression, not so much of patriotism, as with cheers for the King, but of an even deeper loyalty to theancient liberties of which Parliament was the age-long guardian.
    How much had not been accomplished in this mock-Gothic Chamber in the course of a century, by the last Parliaments in the long line that went back centuries more! One thought of the wise social legislation brought to fruition, the scandals exposed and ended, the voices of successive statesmen summoning the nation to its constructive tasks. Thus had British democracy and empire been slowly and delicately integrated, through storm and calm, until to-day, it had come to provide the framework of millions of happy and useful lives.
    And now this great institution, palladium of English liberties, was still in being, its meeting-place overflowing with the full complement of duly elected members. Everyone, I was told, was there for prayers; and very moving it must have been. Even the Cabinet were in their places, Naker and the rest; but surely those of them (I exclude Evans) who knew what they had done or assented to must have felt like Judas in the Upper Room.
    I never mastered British Parliamentary procedure, and cannot explain how it came about that a meeting summoned during the Easter recess to deal with an emergency and to ratify a treaty should begin with a string of questions to Ministers about pensions and municipal finance in West Ham. But I have the clearest recollection of the famous incident that came in the middle of these proceedings, and added to the feeling of tension in the debate that followed.
    There was suddenly a great commotion in the Distinguished Strangers’ Gallery. It was already stiff with diplomats, but here came the German Ambassador, followed by a suite of seven or eight attachés and brown-shirted secretaries such as had never before been seen in these surroundings. The Dutch and Flemish Ministers, with some others, hastened to make room for them, but they did not at once sit down. Instead, standing to attention and raising their right hands towards the Chair, they interrupted the quavering voice of the Minister of Health with the raucous, staccato cry, like blasphemy in church, “Heil Hitler!”
    The Speaker made no sign, but, while the House kept shocked and humiliated silence, a bold member of the Labour Opposition jumped to his feet, and cried: “On a point of order, sir. Will not the officers of the House, in accordance with practice, see that the strangers responsible for this unseemly interruption are summarily ejected?”
    The Germans had clattered down into their seats, like aRoman emperor and his familiars at the circus. There was a pause; the Labour man remained on his feet, while a faint sound of “Hear, hear” came from the benches around him.