The re-opening of the House of Commons found Lord
FISHER in his accustomed place over the clock. What is the lure that brings
him so often to the Peers' Gallery? I think it must be his strong sense of
duty. As Chairman of the Inventions Board he feels he ought to lose no
opportunity of adding to his stock.

Quite the most striking feature of the afternoon was the pink shirt worn by
a well-known Scottish Member, whose name I refrain from mentioning to spare
him any additional blushes. It was of such an inflammatory hue that his
brother-legislators at first took it for a well-developed case of measles
(probably German) and sheered off accordingly. Nobody knows what caused him
to indulge in the rash act, but it is hoped in the interests of coherent
debate that he will not do it again.

Mr. DILLON was so much disturbed by the apparition that, having started out
to demand an immediate General Election unless the Government at once
granted Home Rule to the whole of Ireland, he finished by declaring that he
would be satisfied if they would promise to reform the franchise on the
lines proposed by the SPEAKER'S Conference. Incidentally he drew a fancy
picture of himself and his colleagues striving consistently for thirty-five
years to convert their brother-Irishmen to constitutional methods; from
which I infer that Mr. DILLON, very wisely, does not make a study of his
own old speeches.

[Illustration: PAPER SHORTAGE AT A GENERAL ELECTION.

[The Political Slate (with Sponge) has its obvious compensations.]]

As the engineer of two successive extensions of the life of Parliament Mr.
ASQUITH offered whole-souled support to the proposal to give a third
renewal to its lease. Apart from anything else, how could a General
Election be satisfactorily conducted when there was a shortage of paper and
posters were prohibited? "What's the matter with slates?" whispered a
Member from Wales. If every Candidate paraded his constituency sandwiched
between a couple of slates showing the details of his political programme,
it would certainly add to the gaiety of the nation, besides providing an
easy method of expunging such items as in the course of the contest might
prove unpopular.

A good many silly things have been said in the last month or two about
HINDENBURG and his imaginary "line," but the silliest of all perhaps was
the remark of _The Nation_ that the German retreat on the Somme "has found
our soldiers wanting." This article natural