the bitters and not enough of the mellowing spirit.

His initial mistake was not realising in time that, as Mr. ASQUITH put
it, a man cannot permanently divide himself into watertight
compartments. As member of the War Cabinet and Secretary of the Labour
Party, he seems to have resembled one of those twin salad bottles from
which oil and vinegar can be dispensed alternately but not together. The
attempt to combine the two functions could only end, as it began, in a
double fiasco.

[Illustration: THE DOUBLE FIASCO.

MR. HENDERSON.]

It is fortunate for the Ministry of Munitions that it possesses a
spokesman so bland and imperturbable as Sir WORTHINGTON EVANS. In
successive answers he informed the House that near Birmingham the
Ministry was evicting 130 allotment holders on the eve of their harvest,
in order to build a new factory; and that simultaneously it was
abandoning in the West of England the site of another gigantic factory,
on which a cool million had already been spent. Coming from almost any
other Minister this amazing example of how not to do it would have
raised a storm of supplemental inquiries, if not a motion for the
adjournment. But the House accepted Sir WORTHINGTON'S calm and
matter-of-fact narration as quietly as if it were the last word in
efficiency and coordination.

I was a little premature last week in assuming that Mr. MACCALLUM SCOTT
had been silenced by his appointment as Mr. CHURCHILL'S private
secretary. A long question to the Board of Trade, on the subject of
horse-hides, followed by a series of supplementaries delivered with his
customary emphasis, showed that he is not yet resigned to his muzzle. He
is not, however, entirely oblivious of the customary etiquette in this
matter, for he recited his catechism from the third bench behind
Ministers, and only when it was over descended to the second bench,
where private secretaries most do congregate.

_Tuesday, August 14th_.-Mr. KING has a legitimate grievance against the
Government spokesmen. Two Nationalist Members having been allowed to go
to the United States to collect funds for their party, he asked
yesterday whether he too would be permitted to proceed abroad on a
similar mission. Mr. BONAR LAW, with his habitual courtesy, replied that
he, personally, would not offer any objection. But this afternoon, on
putting an almost identical question to Lord ROBERT CECIL, Mr. KING was
informed, with a touch of _brusquerie_, that "there are s