MR. LLOYD GEORGE (fresh from Paris): "I don't say it's a perfect egg, but
parts of it, as the saying is, are excellent."]
At home the Government decided to release such of the Sinn Fein prisoners
as had not already saved them the trouble, and a Coal Industry Commission
was appointed on which no representative of the general public was invited
to sit--that is to say, the patient, much enduring consumer, not the public
which has all along sought to discount peace by premature whooping,
jubilating, and Jazzing. For the Dove of Peace, though in strict training,
seemed in danger of collapsing under the weight of the League of Nations'
olive bough, to say nothing of other perils, notably the Bolshy-bird, a
most obscene brand of vulture.
Mr. Wilson was once more on the Atlantic, and Mr. Lloyd George, distracted
between his duties in Paris and the demands of Labour, recalled Sir Boyle
Roche's bird, or the circus performer riding two horses at once. In
Parliament the interpretation of election pledges occupied a good deal of
time, and Mr. Bonar Law twice declared the policy of the Government in
regard to indemnities as being to demand the largest amount that Germany
could pay, but not to demand what we knew she couldn't pay. It would have
saved him a great deal of trouble if at the General Election the Government
spokesmen had insisted as much upon the second half of the policy as they
did on the first. Earnest appeals for economy were made from the Treasury
Bench on the occasion of the debate on the Civil Service Estimates, now
swollen to five times their pre-war magnitude, and were heartily applauded
by the House. To show how thoroughly they had gone home, Mr. Adamson, the
Labour Leader, immediately pressed for an increase in the salaries of
Members of Parliament.
[Illustration: