the General Election the Government
spokesmen had insisted as much upon the second half of the policy as they
did on the first. Earnest appeals for economy were made from the Treasury
Bench on the occasion of the debate on the Civil Service Estimates, now
swollen to five times their pre-war magnitude, and were heartily applauded
by the House. To show how thoroughly they had gone home, Mr. Adamson, the
Labour Leader, immediately pressed for an increase in the salaries of
Members of Parliament.

[Illustration:

OVERWEIGHTED

PRESIDENT WILSON: "Here's your olive branch. Now get busy."

DOVE OF PEACE: "Of course, I want to please everybody, but isn't this a bit
thick?"]

[Illustration: HOW TO BRIGHTEN THE PERIOD OF REACTION

MOTHER (to son who has fought on most of the Fronts): "Don't you know what
to do with yourself, George? Why don't you 'ave a walk down the road,
dear?"

FATHER: "Ah, 'e ain't seen the corner where they pulled down Simmondses'
fish-shop, 'as 'e. Ma?"]

On the Rhine the efforts of our army of occupation to present the stern and
forbidding air supposed to mark our dealings with the inhabitants were
proving a lamentable failure. You can't produce a really good imitation of
a Hun without lots of practice. Gloating is entirely foreign to the nature
of Thomas Atkins, and he could not pass a child yelling in the gutter
without stooping to comfort it. At home his education was proceeding on
different lines. The period of reaction had set in, and unwonted exertions
were necessary to stimulate his interest. Such artless devices were,
however, preferable to the pastime, already fashionable in more exalted
circles, of kicking a total stranger round the room to the accompaniment of
cymbals, a motor siren, and a frying pan.

After a month of madness it was not to be wondered at that we should have a
month of muzzling, though the enforcement of the order might have been
profitably extended from dogs to journalists. The secrecy maintained by the
Big Four--a phrase invented by America--the conflict of the idealists with
the realists, and the temporary break-away of the Italian wrestler,
Orlando, were bound to excite comment. But a shattered world could not be
rebuilt in a day, with Bolshevist wolves prowling about the Temple of
Peace, and the Dove at sea between the Ark and Archangel. The Covenant of
the League of Nations, though in a diluted form, had at last taken shape,
the Peace Machine had got a move on,