Volume 156 — THE COUNTER-ORDER OF THE BATH.
Reading edition
[A Standing Committee of the House of Commons has refused to vote £3,800 for a lift and a second bathroom in the proposed official residence of the LORD CHANCELLOR within the precincts of the House of Lords. In a letter to Sir ALFRED MOND Lord BIRKENHEAD wrote: "I am sure both yourself and the Committee will understand that my object in writing is to make it plain that I never asked anyone to provide me with a residence, and that I am both able and willing, in a house of my own, to provide my family and myself with such bathroom and other accommodation as may be reasonably necessary."]
I did not ask for it; I never yearned Within the Royal Court to board and bed; Like all the other honours I have earned, I had this greatness thrust upon my head; But if the Precincts are to be my lair Then for my comfort Ministers must cater; I want a second bath inserted there, Also an elevator. Daily fatigued by those official cares Which my exalted dignity assumes, I could not ask my feet to climb the stairs Which link that mansion's three-and-thirty rooms; And, if the Law must have so clean a fame That none can point to where a speck of dust is, A single bathroom cannot meet the claim Of equitable Justice. My wants are modest, you will please remark; I crave no vintage of the Champagne zone, No stalled chargers neighing for the Park, No 9·5 cigars (I have my own); I do not ask, who am the flower of thrift, For Orient-rugs or "Persian apparatus"; Nothing is lacking save a bath and lift To fill my soul's hiatus. And, should my plea for reasonable perks (Barely four thousand pounds) be flatly quashed; Should kind Sir ALF, Commissioner of Works, Be forced to leave me liftless and half-washed; Then for these homely needs of which I speak, Content with my old pittance from the nation, In Grosvenor Square (or Berkeley) I will seek Private accommodation. O.S.