Parliament has devoted many hours of talk to the discussion of Mr.
Henderson's visit to Paris in company with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald to attend a
Conference of French and Russian Socialists. 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. Mr. Henderson has resigned, and Mr.
Winston Churchill has been appointed Minister of Munitions. Many reasons
have been assigned for his reinclusion in the Ministry. Some say that it
was done to muzzle Mr. MacCallum Scott, hitherto one of the most
pertinacious of questionists, who, as Mr. Churchill's private secretary, is
now debarred by Parliamentary etiquette from the exercise of these
inquisitorial functions. Others say it was done to muzzle Mr. Churchill.
Contrary to expectation, Mr. Churchill has succeeded in piloting the
Munitions of War Bill through its remaining stages in double quick time.
Its progress was accelerated by his willingness to abolish the leaving
certificate, which a workman hitherto had to procure before changing one
job for another. Having had unequalled experience in this respect, he is
convinced that the leaving certificate is a useless formality.
Food stocks going up, thanks to the energy of the farmers and the economy
of consumers; German submarines going down, thanks to the Navy; Russia
recovering herself; Britain and France advancing hand in hand on the
Western Front, and our enemies fumbling for peace--that was the gist of the
message with which the Prime Minister sped the parting Commons. "I have
resigned," Mr. Kennedy Jones tells us, "because there is no further need
for my services." Several politicians are of opinion that this was not a
valid reason. A boy of eighteen recently told a Stratford magistrate that
he had given up his job because he only got twenty-five shillings a week.
The question of wages is becoming acute in Germany too, and it is announced
that all salaries in the Diplomatic Service have been reduced. We always
said that frightfulness didn't really pay.
_September, 1917_.
Thanks to the collapse of the Russian armies and "fraternisation," Germany
has occupied Riga. But her chief exploits of late must be looked for
outside the sphere of military operations. She has added a new phrase to
the vocabulary of frightfulness, _spurlos versenkt_ in the
instructions to her submarine commanders for dealing with neutral
merchantmen. As for the position into which Sweden has been lured by
allowing her diplomatic agents to assist Germany's secret service, Mr.
Punch would hardly go the length of saying that it justifies the revision
of the National Anthem so as to read, "Confound their Scandi-knavish
tricks." But he finds it hard to accept Sweden's professions of official
rectitude, and so does President Wilson.
The German Press accuses the United States of having stolen the cipher key
of the Luxburg dispatches. It is this sort of thing that is gradually
convincing Germany that it is beneath her dignity to fight with a nation
like America. And the growing conviction in the United States that there
can be no peace with the Hohenzollerns only tends to fortify this view in
Court circles. The Kaiser's protestations of his love for his people become
more strident every day.
[Illustration: PERFECT INNOCENCE