is indictment. The PRIME MINISTER mentioned yesterday a new
plan by which an outside Committee, composed of business men and headed
by a Cabinet Minister, was checking the expenditure of the Service
Departments. (The cost of shells, we were told to-day by Dr. ADDISON,
has been brought down to a figure which means an economy of L400,000 a
week on our future production.)

But Mr. LAMBERT would have none of it. Speaking with all the authority
of his long official experience he laid down the dictum that one Cabinet
Minister could not supervise another. Next he attacked the new Order in
Council, which makes the Chief of the Staff responsible for the orders
given to the Army, declaring that it reduced Lord KITCHENER to the level
of a civilian; and finally he denounced the Government for not making
more use of Lord FISHER. Under the stress of these terrific blows the
Government ought to have reeled, if it did not fall. But nothing
happened, except that the Votes on Account for four hundred and twenty
millions were by half-past seven duly passed.

In the Lords meanwhile the Government was sustaining a heavier attack,
arising out of their failure to stop all supplies from reaching Germany.
Lord SYDENHAM attributed it to the Declaration of London, which had
crippled the Navy; Lord BERESFORD thought it was the result of trying to
run a war with a Cabinet that included twenty-one amateurs. Lord
LANSDOWNE, a master of the quip modest, thereupon stated the
Government's intention to add a twenty-second to the twenty-one by
appointing a Minister of Blockade.

_Wednesday, February 23rd._--At Question-time, Mr. ASQUITH announced
that the new Minister was Lord ROBERT CECIL. It is close upon fifty
years since another Lord ROBERT CECIL (who had just become Lord
CRANBORNE) entered the Cabinet of Lord DERBY.

[Illustration: NEW DEPARTURES BY SEA AND AIR.

Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Derby.]

In consequence of the recent decision that no Member shall in future
receive two salaries it had been rumoured that Parliamentary salaries
would be abolished altogether. There were signs of heartfelt relief from
various quarters of the House when the PREMIER met the suggestion with
an uncompromising "No."

Captain J. S. RANKINE, the khaki-clad giant who took his seat for East
Toxteth to-day, had a warm reception, all the more grateful in view of
the blizzard that raged without. The temperature of the House fell
rapidly, however, when Mr. SNOWDEN pr