not keep handing him tools, such as a
pair of scissors or a button-hook or a crowbar. No. You concentrate
earnestly upon the provision of an _efficient corkscrew_, if you ever
hope to taste the imprisoned liquor. And meanwhile, "Don't trip him up"
should be the order of the day; "Don't catch his eye" should be your
watchword; "Don't get into the bowler's arm" should be your motto.

We shall be told, of course ... (Deletion of what we shall of course be
told).

But to discountenance nagging is not to encourage laudation, adulation,
or encomium, or even praise. These can wait. The cow, to change the
metaphor, will generally give her milk all the better if she is not in
the act of being stroked or patted or wreathed with buttercups.

We shall perhaps evoke the retort ... (Deletion of the retort, which
will perhaps be evoked).

So much for the exact attitude which the Public ought to maintain toward
the Government during the War. Unfortunately the Public, or rather a
section of them, have done nothing of the sort. And that is the reason
why, in spite of good intentions about adulation and all that, it has
become absolutely necessary for us to step forward and present the
Ministry with this unsolicited testimonial. The Government is not what
it appears to be to cross-grained critics seeking for a Rotation of
suitable scapegoats. Ministers are full of glaring faults. Most of them
before the War were wickedly engaged in doing all sorts of damage to the
country, appalling to contemplate. But since the War began they are
doing what they can to retrieve a lurid past, and we believe that
History (our intimate colleague who waits to endorse at a later stage
the views expressed in these columns) will pronounce that they have
displayed great qualities.

But stay! We are in danger of adulation after all. Let us freely admit
that they are a sorry lot. We have never been blind to the fact. All the
same, they have shown the greatest of all qualities in a
crisis--dispassion almost amounting to torpor. There has never been
about them the slightest trace of hustle or helter-skelter. They have
steered with the greatest deliberation a course which they thought was
the right one for the ship of state to take. To change the metaphor,
having fixed the route of the national 'bus they have refrained from
diving down side-streets. (But there we go again, running off into
laudation. This will not do at all.)

To speak frankly, all the politi