Wednesday, June 23rd.—­A large company, including the QUEEN and Princess MARY, attended the House of Lords to see Prince ALBERT take his seat as Duke of YORK.  It was unfortunate that the new peer was unable to wait for the ensuing debate, for Lord NEWTON was in his best form.  His theme was the absurdity of the present Parliamentary arrangement under which the Peers were kept kicking their heels in London for the best months of the year, then overwhelmed with business for a week or two, and finally despatched to the country in time for the hunting season, which nowadays most of them were too much impoverished to enjoy.  Lord CURZON condescended a little from his usual Olympian heights, and declared that one of the drawbacks to conducting business in that House was the difficulty of inducing noble Lords to attend it after dinner.

[Illustration:  THE YOUNG UNIONIST MOVEMENT.

“IF THEY WERE TO HAVE HOME RULE AT ALL THEY MUST ‘GO THE WHOLE HOG.’”—­Mr. ORMSBY GORE.]

To judge by Mr. ASQUITH’S recent speeches outside he meant to have delivered a thundering philippic against our continued occupation of Mesopotamia.  Some of the sting was taken out of the indictment by the publication of an official statement showing that Great Britain was remaining there at the request of the Allies.  After all, as Mr. LLOYD GEORGE observed in his reply, it would not be an economical policy to withdraw to Basra if we were to be immediately requested to return to Baghdad.

The rest of the evening was devoted to a renewal of the protests against Mr. CHURCHILL’S “Red Army.”  Among the critics were Mr. ESMOND HARMSWORTH and Mr. OSWALD MOSLEY, the two “babies” of the House, and the MINISTER adopted quite a fatherly tone in recalling his own callow youth, when he too, just after the Boer War, denounced “the folly of gaudy and tinselled uniforms.”

Thursday, June 24th.—­On behalf of the Government Lord ONSLOW gave a rather chilly welcome to Lord BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH’S Bill for the regulation of advertisements.  It is true that the noble author had explained that his object was to secure “publicity without offence,” but I believe he had no desire to cramp the PRIME MINISTER’S style.

Sir ERIC GEDDES belongs to that wicked species of fauna that defends itself when attacked.  He complained this afternoon that Mr. ASQUITH had in his recent speeches “trounced a beginner,” but Sir ERIC showed, for a novice, considerable aggressive power.  He claimed that the Ministry of Transport had already saved a cool million by securing the abrogation of an extravagant contract entered into by Mr. ASQUITH’S Government.  The EX PREMIER, however, insisted that if a mistake had been made the Railway Department of the Board of Trade could have corrected it just as well as its grandiose successor and at an infinitely smaller cost.

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[Illustration:  Naturalised Alien. “VY DOND YOU GED OUD OF MY VAY?  DOND YOU KNOW DER RULE OF DER RIVER?”