rthur Bourchier.

_Mrs. Pretty_ Miss Kyrle Bellew.]

But we have difficulties again with the Foreword (for I cannot get away
from it) when we come to the question of the hero's virility. In the
play his secretary says of him, "Bill's not a man, he's a Premier. A
kind of dynamo running the country at top speed." Yet the Foreword,
after citing this passage, goes on to insist upon his "tingling
humanity" and hinting at the need of such a type of manhood at the
present time. "After all," concludes Mr. Bourchier in a spasm of
uplift--"after all, what is the cry of the moment here in the heart of
the Empire, but for 'a Man-Give us a Man!'" But even if we reject the
secretary's estimate of his chief as a dynamo we still find a certain
deficiency of manhood in the anaemic indifference of the _Premier's_
attitude to women; an attitude, by the way, not commonly associated with
Mr. Bourchier's impersonations on the stage. _Mrs. Pretty's_ tastes are,
of course, her own affair, and we were allowed little insight into her
heart (if any), but I can only conclude that her choice was governed by
political rather than emotional considerations ("Let us remember Women
Have the Vote In Australia" is the finale of the Foreword) and that what
she wanted was a Premier rather than a Man.

Of the play itself one may at least say that it kept fairly off the
beaten track. There was novelty in its local colour, its unfamiliar
types and the episode, adroitly managed, of a pair of gloves employed to
muffle the division bell at the moment of a crisis on which the fate of
the Government depended. But the design was too small to fill the stage
of His Majesty's and it left me a little disappointed. I was content so
long as Mr. Bourchier was in sight, but the part of _Mrs. Pretty_ needed
something more than the rather conscious graces and airy drapery of Miss
Kyrle Bellew. The rest of the performance was sound but not very
exhilarating; and altogether, though I hope I am properly grateful for
any help towards the realisation of "Colonial conditions," I cannot
honestly say that _Mrs. Pretty_ and the _Premier_ has done very much for
me (as Mr. Bourchier hoped it would) by way of supplementing the thrill
of Anzac. O. S.

* * * * *

A NAVAL REVELATION.

Edward Brown's official sheet,
Humble though his station,
Showed a record which the Fleet
Viewed with admiration.

Fifteen stainless summers bor