ion: THE BOLD BAD BARON.

_Sir Gordon Hewart_. "MERELY A FRAMEWORK--QUITE USELESS WITHOUT A
ROPE."]

_Wednesday, October 27th_.--Much pother in the Lords because the FIRST
COMMISSIONER OF WORKS had set up a Committee to advise him with regard
to the preservation of ancient monuments, including cathedrals and
churches, without first consulting the ecclesiastical authorities.
Lord PARMOOR moved a condemnatory resolution, and His Grace of
CANTERBURY, after renouncing Sir ALFRED MOND and all his works,
declared that, so far as religious edifices were concerned, the
proposed Committee was a superfluity of naughtiness with which he
personally would have nothing to do. Lord LYTTON, with that delightful
free-and-easiness which characterises the attitude of our present
Ministers towards their colleagues, observed that he could have
sympathised with the objectors if it were really intended to place
cathedrals under Sir ALFRED'S care; but it wasn't;--so why all this
fuss? Lord CRAWFORD, while sharing the Opposition's dislike of
restorers, from VIOLLET-LE-DUC to the late Lord GRIMTHORPE, could
not admit that in this matter the Office of Works had been guilty of
anything worse than a want of tact. Lord PARMOOR insisted on going
to a division, and carried his motion by 27 to 17. Despite this
shattering blow the Government is said to be going on as well as can
be expected.

[Illustration: A PILLAR OF THE CHURCH.]

What happened at Jutland? After four years' cogitation the Admiralty
does not appear to have emerged from the state of uncertainty into
which it was plunged by the first news of the battle. In February
last Mr. LONG announced that the official report would be published
"shortly," but then the German sailors began to publish _their_
stories, and these not very unnaturally differed from the British
accounts. So now My Lords have decided to leave Sir JULIAN CORBETT'S
_Naval History of the War_ to unravel the tangle and inform Lords
JELLICOE and BEATTY (who, according to Sir JAMES CRAIG, are quite
agreeable to the proposal) exactly what they and their gallant seamen
really did on that famous occasion.

_Thursday, October 28th_.--There being no Labour Party in the House
of Lords the Emergency Powers Bill passed through all its stages in
a single sitting. Even Lord CREWE did not challenge its necessity in
these troublous times, but Lord ASKWITH was a little alarmed at the
possibility that "an unreasoning Home Secretary"--as