broad, and
abandon the idea of "muddling through." With experience of G.H.Q. and
four public departments, he asserted that the men were all right, but
the system all wrong; and that the proper thing was to adopt SULTAN
OMAR'S plan, and give the supreme control of the War to a Cabinet of not
more than four members, who with no administrative details to distract
them might be able to "teach the doubtful battle where to rage."

The PRIME MINISTER listened with interest but without enthusiasm to this
suggestion. Probably he remembered that an essential part of OMAR's
scheme was that if the Four failed to agree they were to be promptly
hanged, and had himself no ambition to take part in a String Quartett.

_Wednesday, February 16th._--The Trustees of the British Museum are for
the most part grave and reverend seniors. But they harbour at least one
humourist among them, in Captain HARRY GRAHAM. I suspect him of having
conceived the notion of choosing this moment, of all others, to frame a
petition to the House of Commons praying for more money to enable them
to fulfil their trust, and of getting Mr. LULU HARCOURT, himself a
member of the Government which is closing their galleries, to present
it.

Sir HENRY DALZIEL is the leader of one of the "ginger groups" above
referred to. His first exploit in this capacity was to resist the
proposal of the Government to take all the time of the House. In his
demand that private Members should still be allowed the privilege of
introducing Bills and having them printed at the public expense, he had
the support of Mr. HOGGE, Mr. KING, Mr. PRINGLE, Mr. BOOTH, Sir WILLIAM
BYLES, and other statesmen of similar eminence; but the PRIME MINISTER
was obdurate. He accused the malcontents of lacking a sense of
perspective--and expressed the poorest opinion of their efforts at
legislation.

Some of the private Members got their own back when the first amendment
to the Address was moved by Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS. The Member for Brentford,
who knows the alphabet of aviation from Aeroplane to Zeppelin,
complained that the air-service, like his own constituency in legendary
times, was under Dual Control, and urged that it should be placed under
a single competent chief.

Neither the UNDER-SECRETARY FOR WAR nor the FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY
was at all happy in reply. They resembled a couple of flying pilots who,
having gone up to attack a hostile airship in the dark, search in vain
for an adequate land