This led to the proposal that all legislation on hours of labour should be taken out of the hands of the Irish Parliament.

Mr.Chamberlain argued this with his tongue in his cheek--professing to dread the unequal competition in which poor England would be placed if wealthy Ireland were allowed to compete unfairly by longer hours.

He urged this in a speech directed to every absurd prejudice and alarm which the ignorant or the timid could feel--altogether made a most unworthy contribution.

John Burns--breezy, outspoken--not friendly to all things done by the Liberals in the past, but firm in his Home Rule faith--went for Mr.Chamberlain in good, honest, sledge-hammer, and workmanlike fashion.

The member for Battersea even dared to blaspheme Birmingham--the Mecca of the industrial world--for its notoriously bad record in industrial matters--an attack which Joe seemed in no way to relish.