LOCAL COLOUR.
Mr. Asquith was reported the other day to have said that the Government was spoken of as having been accused of refusing so-called amendments to the Employers' Liability Bill in "peacock temper." The Daily News, in referring to this, suggests that "peacock temper" was a misprint for "pique, or temper." But surely this is not so. Mr. Asquith evidently has given in his adhesion to the new system of "colour adjectives." This opens great possibilities to the future. Radicals will denounce the "scarlet scandals of the purple-clad peers." Tories will wax eloquent on "the pink miasma of revolutionary Radicalism." No one will know what it all means, but that is part of the programme. Even if this colour scheme will not work, there is still a justification for the Asquithian phrase. Everybody has heard of a "foul slander." Why not a "peacock temper"?