t the attitude of some of the
stay-at-home Members towards the War is much the same as that of my hon.
friend towards the House. "What, is it still going on?"

If the Germans were in occupation of the Black Country, if Oxford were
being daily shelled, as Rheims is, and if with a favouring breeze London
could hear the dull rumble of the bombardment, as Paris can, I wonder if
Members would still be encumbering the Order-paper with the sort of
trivialities that now find place there.

An exception may be made in favour of Mr. JOE KING. He has discovered a
little late in the day that a war is going on in Europe, and that it
affects a little country called Belgium, whose neutrality was guaranteed
by the Powers. He was anxious to know whether Belgium had formally
renounced her neutrality, and was no doubt greatly surprised to learn
from Sir EDWARD GREY that, owing to one of the guaranteeing Powers
having invaded her, Belgium had become a belligerent.

I do not know whether Mr. PRINGLE was in the House when this
announcement was made. But if so it evidently created no impression on
his mind. In the debate on the Army Estimates he followed Captain TRYON,
who had delivered an urgent appeal to the Government from the text, "A
strong Army and a shorter War." Mr. PRINGLE'S ideal is just the reverse.
In his view the Army is too big already, and is taking too great a toll
from our industrial and commercial population. The great men who won the
Napoleonic War--after twenty-three years--had not a big army; and the
consequence was that, while it was going on, British trade expanded by
leaps and bounds. To-day, owing to our disastrous military policy the
demands upon our tonnage were so heavy that people had to go short of
sugar and tobacco. Let us conserve our resources and be ready to dictate
terms when Germany has been financially ruined. When Mr. PRINGLE at last
sat down after three-quarters of an hour of this sort of thing I longed
for ten minutes of Mr. BALFOUR at his best. But he was not present, and
Mr. LONG was so much occupied in defending the Government against the
charge of having broken faith with the married men that Mr. PRINGLE
never got the trouncing he deserved.

_Wednesday, March 22nd._--One of the most cherished beliefs of the House
of Commons is that upon the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill
anything under the sun may be discussed. Colonel YATE was justly
surprised, therefore, when the SPEAKER ruled that