Then followed a lively but inconclusive discussion upon that hardy annual, the alleged sale of honours.  General PAGE CROFT attributed it to the secrecy of party funds and proudly declared that the.  National Party published all the subscriptions it received, and heartily wished there were more of them.  The weakness of his case and that of his supporters was that no specific instances of corruption were brought forward, if we may except Mr. BOTTOMLEY’S assertion that some years ago he might have had a peerage if he had paid for it.

Thursday, May 29th—­A constitutional crisis is impending on the question whether the MINISTER OF HEALTH should have one Parliamentary Secretary or two; the Commons demand two; the Lords will not allow more than one, even though tempted by Lord CURZON with the bribe that the second shall sit in the Upper House.  Having heavily defeated the Government on this point, the Peers then decided that Miss VIOLET DOUGLAS-PENNANT was entitled to a judicial inquiry into the. circumstances that led to her retirement from the Air Force.  The LORD CHANCELLOR opposed the proposal in a speech described by Lord SALISBURY as that “of an advocate rather than a judge;” but in spite or because of this the Government were beaten by 69 to 20.

Somebody ought to move for a return of the amount expended by the Government on the hire of furniture vans since the Armistice.  Sir A. MOND stated that in order to release certain hotels their official occupants had been transferred to the Alexandra Palace, while the interned aliens recently housed in the Palace had been sent to certain country camps, whose late occupants (we may infer) have now gone to the hotels.  It is suggested that the Office of Works should now be known as the “General Post” Office.

One can easily imagine what use a fiery demagogue would have made of the secret circular sent out some months ago by the War Office, instructing commanding officers to ascertain the attitude of their men to the trade unions in the event of a general strike.  Fortunately Mr. ADAMSON is not that type of man, and he couched his criticisms in a vein rather of sorrow than of anger.  There was more sting in the speech of Mr. DAVISON, and one Churchillian phrase:  “They could not maintain constitutional government on the theoretical inexactitudes of kaleidoscopic politicians,” which evidently pleased the originator.

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[Illustration:  Off to raise revenue—­for the National Exchequer (bien entendu).

Mr. BOTTOMLEY.]

Mr. CHURCHILL himself was more concerned with facts than phrases.  The impugned circular, though he took no responsibility for its wording, was essential at the time it was sent out, for the State was bound to defend itself not against ordinary strikes, but against those which would entail universal paralysis.  Turning to Russia, he described Bolshevism as a disease rather than a policy; it spread rapidly, but died out quickly and left its victims—­as Colonel WEDGWOOD might be glad to know—­immune for the future.