At Edward Winter's page on Bonar Law:
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/bonarlaw.html
There is a bit about speech Bonar Law gave in 1912:
I found the ACB page here:From page 152 of the American Chess Bulletin, July 1912:
‘Speaking against Home Rule, Mr Bonar Law said, among other things: “I don’t know whether any of you play the game of chess. I am rather fond of it myself. If any of you understand anything about it you know it sometimes happens, when two players have been engaged in a game for some time, that one of them announces mate in so many moves and his opponent examines the board, and if he sees the mate is there he surrenders the game. That is the position on the political chess board now. Mr Redmond [John Redmond, the leader of the Irish National Party] has played his game so successfully and, with the Government as sleeping partner, announces mate in three moves. But suddenly the pawns, those vigorous pawns, spring to life, and refuse to be moved by them, and insist on moving themselves, and what becomes of the nice situation then?”’
More particulars about Bonar Law’s speech would be welcomed.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... up&seq=160
But there are no further details there.
I have been trying to find where that speech might have been given. I looked in Hansard and failed to find anything there. It might have been from the Blenheim Palace rally speech that Bonar Law gave on 27 July 1912, but that depends on whether that is too late for publication in the July 1912 ACB (I am unsure what date that magazine would have gone to press).
In any case, the tone of the speech ("I don’t know whether any of you play the game of chess") doesn't sound like one made to a big rally of Conservative Unionists (but it might have been), nor of a speech made in parliament. Bonar Law would have made lots of speeches on this topic in June and July 1912. I also tried looking in the archives of The Times, but drew a blank there.
Can anyone find a primary source for this (or think where the ACB might have sourced it from themselves)?