So far as I am aware the Member for Blackburn has never endangered the integrity of his principles by helping his country in any way to win the War. In this respect Mr. Lees Smith, who seconded the motion, has a less consistent record, for he has worn khaki as an orderly of the R.A.M.C. But in his case service abroad seems only to have confirmed his peculiar principles, for he thinks that we ought to return the German colonies, and enable the natives to enjoy once again the blessings of Kultur. If he ever saw the Hun while he was in France it must have been through a pair of rose-tinted binoculars.
Thursday, May 17th.—We are all agog to know whether the Prime Minister's offer of immediate Home Rule to twenty-six Counties of Ireland is to be blessed or banned by the Nationalists. This is the day when Irish Questions have priority, and the House hears such important inquiries as whether Hibernian holiday-makers will have their excursion-trains restored to them; what became of a side of bacon captured by the police during the Easter Monday rebellion, and why a certain magistrate should have been struck off the Commission of the Peace for a trifling refusal to take the oath of allegiance. Are we to go without this entertainment in the future, or will Mr. Redmond refuse to rob Westminster of its gaiety even for the sake of College Green?
If, as I ventured to suggest last week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had laid in a stock of tobacco before the Budget he has evidently exhausted it by now, for, on his attention again being called to the exorbitant charge of the tobacconists, he no longer pooh-poohed the matter, but sternly declared that the situation was being closely watched.
Commercial Candour.
"The Car that never fails to give anything but satisfaction to its owners."—Advertisement in "Indian Motor News."
Amateur (awaiting his turn to perform). "A-are you nervous, old chap?"
Infant Prodigy (ditto). "What is 'nervous'?"