But for the rest Mr. BONAR LAW was not inclined at this
crisis in our fate to encourage the raising of questions, most of them
acutely controversial, which would distract attention from the War.

On an amendment to the Address Mr. LESLIE SCOTT took up his brief for
the British farmer, who, deprived of his skilled men and faced with
higher prices for fertilizers and feeding-stuffs, was expected to
grow more food without having any certainty that he would be able to
dispose of it at a remunerative price. Farming is always a bit of a
gamble, but in present conditions it beats the Stock Exchange hollow.
Some of the proposals which Mr. SCOTT outlined to improve the
situation would have been denounced as revolutionary three years ago,
and were a little too drastic even now for Mr. PROTHERO. Squeezed
between the WAR MINISTER and the FOOD CONTROLLER, the MINISTER OF
AGRICULTURE rather resembles the _Dormouse_ in _Alice in Wonderland_;
but he is really quite all right, thank you. Mr. GEORGE LAMBERT thinks
that the author of "The Psalms in Human Life" is too saintly to tackle
Lords DERBY and DEVONPORT, but, if my memory serves me, DAVID--no
allusion to the PREMIER--had a rather pretty gift of invective.

Let no one say that England is not at last awake. Mr. CHARLES BATHURST
to-night made the terrific announcement that in some parts of the
country Masters of Hounds are--shooting foxes.

"This brings the War home," said FERDINAND THE FEARFUL when he heard
the news.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Jones_ (_to cloak-room attendant_). "HOW MUCH?"

_Cloak-room Attendant._ "THERE IS NO VERBAL CHARGE, SIR."]

* * * * *

"It was agreed to express satisfaction with the announcement that
the price fixed for the potato crop of 1917 was not a miximum
price."--_Scots Paper._

This must be the happy mean of which we hear so much.

* * * * *

THE RECENT TRUCE.

Students of geography know that Ballybun is divided from the back
gardens of Kilterash by the pellucid waters of that noble stream, the
Bun, which hurls itself over a barrier of old tin-cans in a frantic
effort to find the sea. But they do not know that this physical
division, long ago bridged, is nothing to the moral and political
division which will keep the two for ever asunder.

Several of our younger citizens have written to me from the trenches
to ask how the War is p