blin. He
indignantly refused to accept an answer to one of his questions from
little Mr. PRATT, and loudly demanded the corporeal presence of the
CHIEF SECRETARY. Mr. MACPHERSON, however, considers that his duty
requires him to remain in Ireland, where Mr. MACVEAGH'S seventy Sinn
Fein colleagues are keeping him sufficiently busy.

In explaining the swollen estimates of the Ministry of Labour, Sir
ROBERT HORNE pointed out that it is now charged with the functions
formerly appertaining to half-a-dozen other Departments. He has indeed
become a sort of administrative _Pooh-Bah_. Unlike that functionary,
however, he was not "born sneering." On the contrary, he made a most
sympathetic speech, chiefly devoted to justifying the much-abused
unemployment donation, which accounts for twenty-five out of the
thirty-eight millions to be spent by his Department this year. But let
no one mistake him for a mere HORNE of Plenty, pouring out benefits
indiscriminately upon the genuine unemployed and the work-shy. He has
already deprived some seventeen thousand potential domestics of their
unearned increment, and he promises ruthless prosecution of all who
try to cheat the State in future.

Criticism was largely silenced by the Minister's frankness. Sir F.
BANBURY, of course, was dead against the whole policy, and
demanded the immediate withdrawal of the civilian grants; but his
uncompromising attitude found little favour. Mr. CLYNES thought it
would have been better for the State to furnish work instead of doles,
but did not explain how in that case private enterprise was to get
going. France's experience with the _ateliers nationaux_ is not
encouraging, though 1919, when "demobbed" subalterns turn up their
noses at L250 a year, is not 1848.

_Wednesday, April 30th._--Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, returning to the
Exchequer after an interval of thirteen years, made a much better
Budget speech than one would have expected. It was longer, perhaps,
than was absolutely necessary. Like the late Mr. GLADSTONE, he has a
tendency to digress into financial backwaters instead of sticking to
the main Pactolian stream. His excursus upon the impracticability of
a levy on capital was really redundant, though it pleased the
millionaires and reconciled them to the screwing-up of the
death-duties. Still, on the whole, he had a more flattering tale to
unfold than most of us had ventured to anticipate, and he told it
well, in spite of an occasional confusion i