is rather a fake, mind you, about this spat-wearing business, for
it may simply mean that the uppers are very badly worn, or that only
that very bright pink pair of socks came home from the wash this week,
or even that there are no socks underneath at all.

But anyhow, at a conference, Tom, Dick and Harry hobnob with Bob, James
and George, and all are equal, except perhaps the chairman, who has two
more pens in front of him and a much larger ash-tray. Mr. BEVIN and Sir
ERIC GEDDES smile affably across at each other, and the PRIME MINISTER
and Mr. CRAMP find out how much they have in common, such as love of
poetry and pelargoniums. The mine-owner offers the miners'
representative a cigarette, and the miners' representative says to the
mine-owner, "Many thanks, old boy; but I'll have one of my own." And
after it is over they all go out and stand arm-in-arm in a long row to
be photographed for the papers, and are read next morning from left to
right. It is the ambition of every properly constituted Englishman to
wake up some morning and find that his portrait is being read from left
to right; but how few succeed.

The total output of conferences in this country during one year has
never been computed yet, but it is supposed to exceed that of any
country in the world, except Red India. If there were to be a strike of
conferents or conferees, whatever they are called, in England, it is
impossible to say what would happen. But it might be possible to lay
down a datum line--a shilling extra for the first million words above
two hundred and fifty million per shift, and two shillings more for
every million words above that. Fortunately this will never be
necessary, for people who confer are so fond of conferences that they
will never down chairs.

And no wonder. Only a very strong man can hew coal, and only a very
reckless one can make a speech, but almost anyone can confer if he has a
large enough ash-tray; and there seems no reason why more people
shouldn't confer. Everybody is interested in conferences, whatever they
are about, and the British public ought to be admitted to this kind of
thing. One is always reading in the paper that the sound commonsense or
the traditional sense of fair play of the great British public will
support the miners in any just claim; but this claim is not just or just
isn't, or something of that sort. But how do they know what the great
British public will feel about it? They aren't there, are t