dd for Mr.
BILLING'S benefit--the standard would be still further raised when more
material was available.

When he was in the Government Mr. HOBHOUSE was not less economical of
information in his official utterances than any of his Ministerial
colleagues. Now that he is out of it he is all for full disclosure. Why
had Mr. TENNANT said nothing of Gallipoli or Salonika, Loos and Neuve
Chapelle? Why, if we were allowed to know that three million goatskins
had been provided for the Army, might we not know how many men were
going to wear them? In his view the result of the East Herts election
was due to the Government having kept Parliament in the dark.

At last the stage was clear for Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING, who, considering
how long he had been kept waiting, made a creditable _debut_. He had, it
is true, no startling revelations to make, or, at any rate, did not make
them. His principal point was that we must exterminate the Zeppelins,
and that we had aeroplanes enough and pilots enough to do it now. He
would be delighted to introduce Mr. TENNANT to the men and the machines,
while as for bombs he was prepared to lay them on the Table of the
House. For a first performance it was quite good, even if not entirely
equal to the advance-billing.

_Wednesday, March 15._--I am rather surprised that none of the evening
papers had the enterprise to come out to-night with a contents bill
bearing the words--

"Great Attack on Portsmouth,"

for the legend would have been not only startling but unusually
accurate. The House of Lords assembled this afternoon in the expectation
of hearing important statements from the Earl of DERBY and Earl
KITCHENER on the recruiting crisis. What it was at first compelled to
listen to was the Earl of PORTSMOUTH giving his views on the
Anglo-Danish Agreement. With dogmatic ponderosity he declared that the
Agreement was losing us the friendship of the other Scandinavian
countries, that it was not preventing goods getting into Germany, and
that it ought to be abrogated forthwith.

I doubt if any of the Peers present had ever heard anything like the
castigation which the Marquis of LANSDOWNE administered. Where did the
noble Earl collect the kind of information that he had seen fit to pour
forth? He seemed to have swallowed a lot of stories purveyed by people
who were no friends to this country. There was not a word of truth in
the suggestions he had made, and the Government, far from abrogating the